knowledge on sky

Using a virtual taskforce to keep CR relevant at Sky

2006-10-30T23:40:00.000-08:00

Using a virtual taskforce to keep CR relevant at Sky

The corporate responsibility team at Sky is aided by a CR steering group and "virtual taskforce" to ensure its CR efforts are constantly in tune with the business needs. The following 10 points outline the responsibilities and benefits of the taskforce. Would this successful model work in your organization?

1. At a board and executive level, the CR Steering Group (CRSG) provides leadership and drives corporate responsibility practices.

2. The CRSG is supported on the ground by a taskforce of senior operational managers that works to embed responsible business practices throughout the diverse range of functions within Sky. The taskforce was established in 2004 with approximately 12 initial members, but the virtual nature of the taskforce has enabled its growth to some 50 people.

3. The taskforce is supported and guided by the CR department, bringing relevant areas of the business together to address issues.

4. It meets periodically around core management activities such as risk workshops and diagnostic sessions and has proved to be most successful as a more virtual entity that interacts with the CR department and CRSG to address key issues.

5. The day-to-day integration and management of CR business practices are run as part of the general function of operating areas.

6. The taskforce provides an internal framework to help ensure CR activities remain relevant for the business and for its stakeholders.

7. Taking action to deliver against commitments and performance indicators is another key role of the taskforce.

8. Annual commitments are set with input from the taskforce in light of findings from consultation, risk assessment processes and issues tracking.

9. Keeping those commitments simple helps to focus the business on what it needs to deliver. In the last year Sky has trimmed the number of commitments set in order to focus on the key issues for the business.

10. The nature of the commitments enables the business to apply them to existing initiatives and new opportunities as they arise throughout the year, therefore maximizing action from the business.

For more information on Sky's corporate responsibility work, visit: www.sky.com/responsibilities

source

Positive Mind

2006-10-30T23:34:00.000-08:00

Your subconscious mind will believe anything you tell it - if you repeat the words often and with conviction. When you are faced with a daunting task that you have never attempted before, focus on the potential for success, not on the possibilities for failure. Break the job down into smaller elements and takle each one separately. The only difference between success and failure in any job is your attitude toward it.

Napoleon Hill

Defining corporate culture

2006-07-06T00:38:00.000-07:00

Defining corporate culture

23 June 2006

Corporate culture can be a key source of competitive advantage - but how do you define it?

According to Paul Sanchez, global director, organization research and effectiveness at Mercer Human Resource Consulting, corporate culture can be defined as the sum total of how an organization accomplishes all that it has to do to fulfill its purpose or mission. This definition covers an organization’s operational procedures as well as the standards, behavioral norms and deep-rooted values that underpin them.

Culture as "enduring personality"
“All the overt and subtle patterns of behavior in organizations weave themselves together to create an unmistakable personality and identity,” explains Sanchez. “This enduring personality or abiding culture is a deeply embedded cause of an organization’s capacity not only to cope in challenging times, but also to thrive and prosper. In other words, an organization’s culture is key to its success or failure.”

Five windows on culture
Sanchez identifies five constructs that offer insights into the heart of an organization to form the basis of a cultural audit focused on developing an understanding of the workings of an organization. “These characteristics can be observed from the outside and assessed by those on the inside as ways in which employees behave and respond,” he explains. They are:

1. Achievement – the collective and individual drive to produce results.

2. Environment – whether an organization has a process- or outcome-driven approach to accomplishing work.

3. Perspective – whether it is traditional or innovative.

4. Power – whether it is shared or retained.

5. Risk – whether it is avoided or encouraged.

“This model resulted from collective thinking based on actual experience and the theory of organizational dynamics,” explains Sanchez. “Because these are working constructs, they give the organization a lever with which to shape its culture.”

Sanchez uses the five constructs as the basis of a diagnostic instrument that includes organization-wide surveys and workshops comprising groups of senior management, middle management and employees “The responses provide a snapshot of the organization’s culture,” he explains.

Further reading from Melcrum:
This is an extract from the Melcrum report, Driving a high-performance corporate culture

Source: http://www.sourcecomms.com/topics/defining_corporate_culture.shtml

Is wholesale culture change really required?

2006-07-06T00:37:00.000-07:00

Is wholesale culture change really required?

23 June 2006

South Africa-based consultancy The AA Group say the very idea of “managing corporate culture” leads organizations to plan changes that are far more wide-ranging than is actually necessary.

Most organizations only need to modify their existing culture rather than change it totally. Change is far more likely to be successful if it builds on the existing culture and values.

Five alternatives to wholesale change
The AA Group suggests five ways to consider shaping organizational culture as an alternative to wholesale change:

Clarifying – Revisiting existing cultural values and providing reassurance of their continued importance to the organization.
Emphasizing – Prioritizing certain key values within the organization in reaction to the external environment.
Redefining – Bringing in new practices that support an existing value.
Building – Giving weight and meaning to an existing value that hasn’t yet been fully internalized by the organization.
Creating – Creating new values or replacing existing values that are no longer relevant.

Set realistic time scales
Think carefully about the timescale you set for achieving your objectives. James O’Toole, author of Vanguard Management: Redesigning the Corporate Future, says companies attempt culture change in one of two ways: through revolution or evolution. Attempts at revolution are most certain to fail. An organization’s culture is formed over many years of company history through people’s shared experiences and its future culture will be formed in the same way.

If you’re being asked to help deliver change to short time scales (i.e. less than a year), either the objectives being set are unrealistic or you’re back in the arena of more simple, short-term behavior change rather than a major culture change.

Further reading from Melcrum:
This is an extract from the Melcrum report, Driving a high-performance corporate culture

Source: http://www.sourcecomms.com/topics/wholesale_change.shtml

Succession Planning, an Acquired Skill

2006-07-06T00:07:00.001-07:00

Succession Planning, an Acquired Skill

New York-based drug manufacturer Pfizer has had systematic succession planning in place for at least well over a decade, but that doesn’t preclude it from having to deal with new challenges to the process. The latest hurdle it’s had to meet is integrating newly acquired employees into its succession plan, says vice president, global talent development Chris Altizer.

"Because the organization is in pretty much continual flux after going through two major acquisitions, the whole concept of knowing your talent becomes a fundamentally different exercise," he points out. Namely, it means the company needed to revise how it thinks about possible successors. Instead of thinking about a neat list of replacements for particular jobs, it had to learn to be more adaptable. "Being more flexible in terms of [asking ourselves about] not just a specific job, but what is a role, and how similar are these roles in terms of scope and scale and then the criteria required below that," Altizer says.

Tracking talent for possible succession is not easy since 50 to 60 percent of the 156-year-old company is composed of employees that joined in just the last six years following the acquisition of former competitors Warner-Lambert in 2000 and Pharmacia in 2003. What used to be certain in terms of the composition of in-house talent is no longer such a sure thing. "In '98 or '99, the senior leaders of this organization could sit around a table and they generally knew the talent, so the robustness of assessment and documentation probably not so much," says Altizer of the need, or lack thereof, back then for highly structured succession planning. One way the company is adapting is by putting together common criteria for senior positions. "You get a company of our size, you have so many jobs that are similar at senior levels," he notes. "You have to get down to the roles, and the folks who are qualified to perform in that role. So, even if the job changes somewhat, our assessments and predictions of their ability to be effective don’t change that much."

Early communication with employees from the newly acquired company also helps. When the Pharmacia acquisition occurred, Pfizer took a direct approach with its new additions. "The statement from the very beginning was, 'This is an acquisition by Pfizer; it is not a merger of equals, and there is a place for people who want to be here,' " Altizer says. Sending a message to new talent that they can be successful if they are willing to work on their new parent company’s terms did the trick. "When we look at several of the very successful senior leaders we have today, several of them are from Pharmacia," he notes.

The first step toward integrating new employees into your talent management program following an acquisition is obtaining information from your new subsidiary on the employees it has identified as "high potential," Altizer says. "We would look at their assessments of their high potential talent, and we would ascribe a degree of credibility to those." In a strategy Pfizer referred to as "high touch," he explains, it spoke with Pharmacia’s most senior leaders about high potentials, and then made a point of reaching out to those employees. "The whole point was to let them know they were valued," he says, "and while whatever position they were in may or may not be the position they would be in [at Pfizer], if there was a place for them to be, we were going to work to make it happen."

See Training's July issue for more on succession planning.

source: Inside Learning - Training Magazine

LEADING PROJECT TEAMS THROUGH BURNOUT

2006-07-05T23:54:00.000-07:00

LEADING PROJECT TEAMS THROUGH BURNOUT

TDF e-Net recently spoke with Lou Russell, president and CEO of Russell Martin & Associates and the author of IT Leadership Alchemy (Prentice Hall, 2002) and Leadership Training (ASTD, 2003), about some of the most effective ways to lead staff, project teams, and even oneself through burnout.

Here's what she had to say:

TDF E-NET: What creates stress and burnout in teams?

Russell: One reason people get overwhelmed, stressed and burned out -- especially in today’s business environment -- is that they have too much to do. And when that happens, it makes them feel inadequate because they are constantly facing the fact that they're "not good enough."

In addition, team projects are so different nowadays. Look at trainers, for example. Five to 10 years ago, we used to schedule a two-day project-management class by putting it on the calendar once a month for 12 months. Every time, the class would have the same format and supplies –- and that, alone, was a full-time job.

That world is so gone.

Today, trainers are balancing so many things. We are delivering performance improvement in addition to learning. Our world and our jobs have become infinitely more complex. To do anything, we have to get a whole bunch of people together -- leadership, stakeholders, learners, managers, SMEs, etc. -- and work with everyone effectively. At any given time, we may be juggling everything from a training component and an e-learning component to facilitation, assessments, posttests and pretests. And there is huge pressure to deliver ROI (and rightly so).

What typically happens is that people who are new to the industry just write everything they need to do on a "to-do" list that has 5,000 tasks on it and they never get through a single day feeling like they are making any progress because, for every 10 tasks they cross off on any given day, they add 20 more to the list.

TDF E-NET: What are some ways that training professionals can help teams to minimize stress and burnout?

Russell:

Prioritize and delegate. A big part of managing stress is having the ability to manage what is important to you; understanding, realistically, how long things take to get done; and delegating. So, help team members to focus on the project as a whole rather than on the individual tasks associated with the project and help them to put everything together so that their focus is on the project and the next thing that absolutely needs to be done. In other words, team members need to prioritize instead of trying to manage 5,000 different things at a time. They'll not only work better by doing so, they'll also feel better about delegating work to other people instead of trying to take care of everything themselves.

Acknowledge the elephant in the room. One of the most important things you can do when dealing with team stress and burnout is to acknowledge the fact that they exist. If a team member is burned out, he wants someone to say, 'Wow. You are really going through a rough time right now.'

Problem is, everyone is going through a rough time right now and everyone is waiting for someone to say the same thing to her. Thus, we end up in situations where no one on a team is acknowledging the stress of others or empathizing with them. And if the whole team is mad and stressed out and feels that no one appreciates them, you're going to have burnout.

To solve this problem, trainers can go into the team environment and almost do corporate therapy. Just spending an hour listening to the team and acknowledging what team members are going through can be very powerful.

Create a team to-do list. As the trainer, go in, sit down with each team member one-on-one and create a spreadsheet that lists everything that needs to be done. Based on that list, ask, "Realistically, how much do you need to do? How much can you delegate?"

Once everyone has created a spreadsheet, merge the individual spreadsheets of the entire team together and display the completed document for all to see so that every team member understands what his or her colleagues are up against. That way, people will be much more likely to ask for help from -- and give help to -- other team members when it's needed.

You can also put the to-do list to use by leveraging it as a conversation-starter with team members’ bosses and managers when asking for resources that the team might need.

www.trainingliveandonline.com
Russell will present the "Learning Leadership Certificate Program" as part of Training magazine's Training Live and Online series of online certificate programs. The program shows participants the most "effective ways to lead while allowing the people one leads to master their own skills and continue to grow." The next start date for Russell's six-week online certificate program is September 8, 2006. Visit the above URL to learn more or to register.

Vital statistics: 44% increase in international assignments by multinational companies

2006-06-20T11:15:00.000-07:00

Vital statistics: 44% increase in international assignments by multinational companies

According to a new survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, a global HR and financial advisor, 44% of 200 multinational firms questioned report an increase in the number of international assignments to and from locations other than the headquarters over the past two years. Much of the increase in the number of international assignments is due to the widespread use of short-term placements which have become more prevalent over the past few years. According to survey findings, while the vast majority of multinational companies (84%) place employees on short-term assignments, only about half (56%) have a formal policy for this type of assignment.

"Short-term assignments are generally more cost-effective than long-term assignments and they allow companies to transfer skill sets quickly and easily. However, for short-term assignments to be successful, companies need to develop well-defined policies to manage costs and limit risks," said Yvonne Sonsino, a principal with Mercer in London. Incentives and cultural support Only 22% of companies say they do not provide mobility premiums as an incentive for international assignments.

However, far more companies provide these premiums systematically for long-term assignments (73%) than for short-term assignments (31%). Gareth Williams, a worldwide partner in Mercer’s Chicago office, said: "One of the main reasons that assignments fail is because expatriates and their families cannot successfully adjust to their new environment. Companies are recognizing the importance of providing support in advance of employee moves. Investment in language and cultural training, for example, can dramatically improve the chance that the international assignment will be successful."Other Mercer survey findings related to trends in international assignment programs include:

· The proportion of female expatriates has increased significantly, from 8% five years ago to 13%. North America and Asia/Pacific lead this trend. Females now account for 14% of the expatriate assignments of companies based in Asia/Pacific, compared with 9% five years ago.
· 72% of the survey participants provide language tuition and 60% of companies provide cross-cultural training, but the critical process of integration once in the host country is typically left to employees.
· Globally, 42% of companies provide expatriates with free housing, but for North American companies, the figure is just 22%.
· Some 50% of companies include spouse support in their international assignments policy; 11% do not have a policy but are developing one, and 12% handle spouse issues on a case-by-case basis.
· While the majority of companies surveyed believe they have a general understanding of the cost of their international assignments, only a few are in a position to measure the specific expense, resulting value, and, ultimately, return on investment from such postings.

More information about Mercer’s 2005/2006 International Assignments Survey can be found here.

source: the source Melcrum

Top Tips: Engineering green product design

2006-06-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

Top Tips: Engineering green product design

By Richard Miller, Cyrstal Faraday

It can be hard to push the challenges of sustainability up the strategic agenda. Here, Richard Miller gives five top tips on moving forward with green product design at your organization.
While everyone wants to be part of a business with a future, the discussion on sustainability often seems to consist mostly of negatives; things that threaten your business.

Issues such as this must be dealt with, but they don't look like they will bring any competitive advantage and it's hard to get senior executives excited about sustainability.

However, a growing number of companies have created genuine competitive advantage by developing new products and services that reduce environmental impact whilst maintaining or improving economic, technical and social performance - what has come to be called Green Product Design.

Innovating with design

Crystal Faraday is the UK innovation centre for green chemical technology. We're here to unite industry, academics and government around a common purpose - to make industry more profitable and society more environmentally sustainable through chemistry and engineering. Over the last 12 months we've been developing a structured approach to green product design suitable for industries making and using chemical products. We've found that one of the key challenges is to develop the right mindset.

Successful green product design uses similar tools to any other innovation process. The main difference is in the questions that are asked and the point of view from which concepts are developed and evaluated. We have found the following ideas a powerful way of challenging conventional thinking and opening up the opportunities.

Environmental issues are not just overhead, they represent real commercial opportunities. IBM estimates that from 1996-2002 it saved $2 in avoided costs for every $1 invested in pollution prevention and green product design.

Don't just fix the problem, re-think the system. The Swiss textile company Rohner Textil had problems with waste and emissions from their factory. Rather than install treatment systems, they re-designed the product range to use only natural fibres and low toxicity chemicals and processing. The Climatex Lifestyle range meets all user requirements whilst producing almost no effluent and leaving only biodegradable waste.

There is no waste, only raw materials. Squalane is a high value cosmetic ingredient traditionally obtained from shark liver oil, an unsustainable source. Uniqema were able to produce squalane from a by-product of the olive oil industry. During the process, the rest of the by-product was upgraded to a saleable material. All of the 'waste' was converted into something with commercial value.

You can have both lower impact and higher customer value. The Dow Sentricon termite colony eliminator puts the toxic bait exactly where it is needed and protects it from weather and exposure to people and domestic animals. The amount of pesticide needed is reduced by a factor of 1000 giving a safer, cheaper and more effective product.

Think about the whole lifecycle. What happens both upstream and downstream of your operations? You may be able to innovate to solve problems for your customers and create new market opportunities. A new label adhesive was developed for high speed bottling lines that was not only safer in use, it also made recycling of used PET drinks bottles faster and less costly, increasing the value of the PET scrap.

Visit Crystal Faraday

Vital Statistics: Labor issues in the computer industry

2006-06-20T10:08:00.000-07:00

Vital Statistics: Labor issues in the computer industry
By Bart Slob, SOMO

A recent Mail on Sunday report into alleged labor issues at iPod factories has added fuel to the growing debate of factory workers' rights in countries such as China.
Earlier this year the Center for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) published a report on labor issues in the wider information and communications technology (ICT) sector that covers consumer electronics products such as desktop and notebook computers.

Going with the territory

The ICT sector is characterized by high levels of outsourcing to countries including China and Taiwan, with major brand name companies including Acer and Fujitsu-Siemens outsourcing major parts of their production process to contract manufacturers who then sub-contract. Here, SOMO's Bart Slob identifies seven key statistics of the research.

Nine Taiwanese and Chinese contract manufacturer factories for Acer and Fujitsu-Siemens were researched for the SOMO report. At these factories, ICT products were also being manufactured for nine other companies – also called original equipment manufacturers or OEMs – including: Dell, Apple, HP, Sony, Philips, Lenovo, Nokia, Microsoft and IBM. These companies often use the so-called "barebone" strategy, meaning to reduce lead times they purchase almost readymade computers from contract manufacturers (CMs) and add modules such as hard drives, RAM and other optional accessories closer to consumer markets.

Brands use different CMs to ensure constant supply but a relatively small number of CMs supply to nearly all the leading OEMs. In fact, in 2004, Quanta and Compal, two of the world's largest original design manufacturers (ODMs - meaning they own the intellectual rights to the designs of the products but they also use contract manufacturers), manufactured some 54.4 percent of all notebook computers available on the world market.

Many of the OEM brands sell near identical computers with identical specifications. For example, the same barebone notebook computers are used for some models in the Acer Aspire, Hitachi Flora, Dell Smartstep and the Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo ranges.

Factory issues

Across the original nine factories it researched, SOMO uncovered the following issues:
Excessive hours: During peak production season, workers have 12-hour days, six days a week.
However, at one contract manufacturer in China, workers complained of not having a single day off for several months.

Wages of most workers at the factories researched by SOMO are insufficient to cover expenses related to food, let alone rent, clothing and education. In four factories researched in China, basic wages are below the local minimum wage.

Health and safety: Workers in the sector often have to work with hazardous materials and substances without proper protection or health and safety measures. In the factories researched, there were 10 different complaints related to working conditions: excessive hours, work-related stress, noise, poor ergonomics, chemical exposure, skin allergies, respiration problems, noise hazards, dizziness and nausea.

ï»¿After the thorough shake-up caused by Catholic Agency for Overseas development’s (CAFOD) “clean up your computer” campaign in 2004, some companies began acknowledging the labor issues in their supply chains. In late 2004, several leading companies developed the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (EICC). The code is currently endorsed by HP, IBM, Dell, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, Sony, some key contract manufacturers and Apple, who's supplier code of conduct (PDF) is modelled on the EICC standard.

The EICC organizers share a vision of creating enhanced social, economic and environmental conditions for all workers in the technology industry’s supply chain and making it more efficient for common suppliers to comply with a single set of agreed-upon high standards.
In the code, clear reference is made to responsible supply chain management: “At a minimum, participants shall require its next-tier suppliers to acknowledge and implement the code.”
Failing to comply

In spite of the relevance of this initiative, some major companies like Acer and Fujitsu-Siemens Computers, refrain from endorsing the code.

The development of the EICC certainly is a step in the right direction, although it’s not clear how compliance with the code is to be monitored. Most of the companies that have endorsed the code are still in the early stages of implementation.

Notwithstanding the ambition and the good intentions of its developers, there is an eminent credibility gap. At least one of the CMs that endorse the EICC is known to have its employees in China work 12 hours a day for months without a single day off.

Excerpted from the article, Labor issues continue to blight computer industry in the Feburary/March 2006 issue of Corporate Responsibility Management. For access to the online archive, visit Melcrum.

Top Tips: Maximizing your investor engagement strategy

2006-05-21T20:51:00.000-07:00

Investors are becoming more interested in understanding the business case for sustainable development and corporate responsibility. But too often, CR information is provided too late or it doesn’t meet requirements.

Here, Nicky Amos and Will Oulton give 10 top tips on maximizing your investor engagement strategy.
1. Take time to understand the drivers and motives of investors wishing to engage with your company on CR issues.
2. Prioritize investors that are most strategically important to your company.
3. Identify roles and responsibilities across CEO, FD, company secretary, investor relations and CR functions and agree a coherent communications strategy.
4. Build relationships with key investors as part of your engagement strategy.
5. Actively engage with the investment community by organising analyst briefings, providing regular CR updates on your website.
6. Disclose information on issues that are material to business performance; in other words, those issues that would enable shareholders and others stakeholders to make informed decisions about your company, including social, environmental and governance issues.
7. Apply good communications principles to your disclosure on CR and governance issues. Avoid anecdotal information and ensure that what you communicate is meaningful, timely and tailored to the needs of investors.
8. Articulate the business case for your CR and sustainable development program. Show how good CR performance is critical to your company’s growth and long-term success.
9. Develop robust KPIs in conjunction with your stakeholders in order to provide tangible measures on issues that are material to your business.
10. Keep a watching brief on how the investment community is responding to the need for more refined disclosures on CR and governance and do what you can to anticipate these needs as part of your communications strategy.

Nicky Amos and Will Oulton, Corporate Culture

TOP TIPS: Establishing trust in virtual teams

2006-05-12T02:32:00.000-07:00

Trust is the foundation for teamwork and collaboration, whether face-to-face or in virtual teams. But trust is hard to establish, especially when teams are frequently changing and team members haven't had long to gel. Here, Debbie Lawley offers five top tips for establishing trust in virtual teams.

1. Keep it simple:What you might try and achieve with a co-located team may not work with a virtual team. Keep the teams small (10 core contributors is ideal) and give them a reasonable, well-defined scope of operation, rather than working with a large team and too many complex interrelationships. In a small team, there will be fewer relationships to handle and trust will be easier to establish.

2. Have good leadership: A good leader - of anything, not just virtual teams - will build trust through merging individual cultures and personalities into a team culture. In a virtual team there's a need for good leadership and trust in their ability. Organize face to face meetings to establish the team's base and discover personalities and let people meet who they're going to be working with virtually. The real work will only start after that first face to face meeting.

3. Maintain the team: Have you ever been in a work situation with a high staff turnover? New people coming and going all the time breeds distrust in teams and departments. In a virtual team, this effect is amplified.

Even though the size of a team will no doubt flex throughout a project, it's important to try and maintain the members as best you can. Aim to minimize the turnover and let team members build relationships. Beware that changing team members deep into a virtual team project may impact trust and have a negative effect on the team and it's ultimate goal.

4. Keep a balance of skills and personalities: should you choose team members that are alike or different in skills and personality? The answer is to have both and have a good balance of people in your team. Being like each other raises the degree of trust among members although it also reduces diversity. You need a mix of people to create and innovate.

5. Trust people and they'll do better jobs: If you trust people to get on with their work, most will do it more effectively than they would do with someone hovering over them. This applies to virtual teams too. Perceiving people to be high performers also reduces the likelihood that they'll renege on tasks and so increases trust.

Adapted from: Establishing trust in virtual teams at Orange, By Debbie Lawley, in the May/June issue of KM Review.
By Debbie Lawley, Willow Transformations
Source: The Source -

Top Tips: How to discover HR's strategic opportunities

2006-05-09T20:29:00.000-07:00

Top Tips: How to discover HR’s strategic opportunities

In today’s competitive world, organizations won't continue to fund anything that doesn’t add value, including HR. If it fails to reduce costs and improve services, HR has a bleak future. So, how can HR make effective differences and save itself?

1. Ask the business questions
Ask executives how the strategy is working out, what's exciting or worrying them. Initially, executives might be surprised by your questions, but will soon become accustomed to having business conversations with you. Ask what's discussed and seems important, but isn't measured or openly reported. What executives see and hear can be more important to them than performance figures.

2. Check business plans
Look for the HR implications of the business strategy/plan. How many people does it assume, where are they, what skills and qualifications will be needed and do rewards systems support the plan? If there's no written strategy/plan, ask senior managers if such informality works well. Can HR add strategic value by facilitating the development of a formal strategy? Look for assumptions, omissions, mistakes and inconsistencies in the strategy – they're all opportunities for HR to add value.

3. Look for performance issues
Get a copy of the performance measures used by executives – these may not be the official measures. Discover what competitors are doing. Their decisions might not be wholly relevant to your organization, but there may be some good ideas you can implement. Additionally, their successes might highlight your problems.

4. Network
Create opportunities to share information and ideas with other HR professionals in your organization. Ask for their help in obtaining further information, discussing your ideas, checking draft proposals and so on. Attend conferences and workshops, build new relationships, keep detailed notes (containing information which you might otherwise forget) and share them with others.

Source: Peter Goodge: http://www.strategichr.co.uk, excerpted by Annie Waite, Editor Source - Melcrum.

90% of strategies fail to be carried out successfully

2006-05-09T20:23:00.000-07:00

Vital statistics: 90% of strategies fail to be carried out successfully

Taking results from five years worth of research between 2000-2005 within government bodies, energy and utilities businesses in South East Asia, Bridges Business Consultancy has revealed that 90% of strategies fail to be carried out successfully. Of the 150 line managers questioned, 97% percent agreed with the statement "Implementation fails because of bad execution, not bad strategy."

The results revealed that the top ten challenges in implementing change initiatives are:
1. Gaining support and action
2. Communicating the change
3. Overcoming resistance from staff
4. Support of senior management
5. Aligning processes
6. Tracking success of implementation
7. Changing rewards and recognition
8. Acquiring customer feedback
9. Implementing new technology
10. Acquiring budget

According to the survey, the most common way for communicating change initiatives to staff was via e-mail (25% of the time), followed by briefings and newsletters. The survey also revealed that most communication was front-loaded – there was too much information and activity at the start, closely followed by a lack of consistent communication strategy over the term of the initiative or implementation.

Other findings from the research include the greatest resistance to change within organizations comes from middle managers: 54%, versus 13% from executive level and 23% from front-line workers.

Source: "Bricks to Bridges: Make your strategy come alive" by Robin Speculand. www.bridgesconsultancy.com ; excepted by Annie Waite, Editor Source - Melcrum.

Methods for embedding CR

2006-04-30T05:45:00.000-07:00

Methods for embedding CR
By Jason Sumner, Melcrum Publishing

To truly align corporate responsibility with the business strategy, the concept of CR must be embraced from the top down and bottom up, with buy-in from the CEO and board members to frontline staff.

Here are five top ways to embed CR successfully:
1. Use formal and informal methods for a progressive and employee-supported CR strategy: Formal processes include setting up appropriate governance frameworks, systems and processes to ensure CR is integrated into policies and practices. Informal methods include implementing non-systematic and ad hoc (but no less important) techniques to gain genuine buy-in from employees rather than lip-service.
2. Get top-level ownership: CEO and board commitment is critical to an effective governance framework. "A lot of sustainability issues require people to think in different ways than they've done before," says Emma Herd, senior advisor, CR and sustainability, Westpac. "The quickest way to get people to engage is to have the CEO and the board providing the appropriate incentives."
3. Create cross-functional advisory groups: Sustainability issues are always cross-functional and there needs to be regular forums to discuss those cross-functional issues. There's much more value in having everyone involved from start to finish, rather than one part of the business to own it solely. Create advisory groups where different aspects of the business, such as the board and major stakeholders, different management tiers and employee groups can meet periodically.
4. Include CR in performance reviews: There isn't a better way to truly embed CR than make mangers directly responsible for sustainability-related objectives and then measure their progress. You can measure this by official methods, meeting targets on water usage, recycling and so on, to unofficial methods such as rewarding and recognizing environmental initiatives or community volunteering by individuals or groups.
5. Measure your progress: As well as setting group executive metrics for the company, it's vital to measure employee perceptions. If you run an annual employee survey, ensure it contains CR questions year on year.

Adapted from, Embedding CR at Westpac, in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

CR issues in the FTSE 250

2006-04-30T05:39:00.000-07:00

CR issues in the FTSE 250

By Stuart Blake, Lucid Connections

When CR first emerged, few companies approached it in a strategic fashion. But a recent survey of FTSE 250 companies has revealed a great deal of progress in corporate attitudes and it's also revealed some of the practical issues facing professional communicators. Of respondents to the survey, 85 percent said corporate responsibility was "very important" or "critical" to their commercial success. Further results give some valuable insight:

· 62 percent cited "business sustainability" as a driver for CR in their company. This demonstrates that CR, if used correctly, helps a company to be better aware of its non-financial risks and trends.
· 52 percent of respondents listed "complying with legislation" as another key driver for CR. Despite a lack of clear CR legislation, there are many other laws, the most obvious being environmental, that companies have to abide by and would deem to fall under the term "CR."
· 59 percent of respondents cited the integration of CR into mainstream management processes as their most significant challenge. That this issue exists is a clear example of how CR has progressed. Previously, CR may have been on the job-list for the "honesty department at head office." Now, CR is the job for everyone in the business.
· 43 percent cited CR as a motivation for attracting and retaining the best staff. This shows that CR has the potential to inspire and, if an organization works with rather than against the prevailing ways of doing things, CR can become a factor in every business decision.
· 81 percent said NGOs were the most difficult stakeholder group to engage with. Given the scope and diversity of NGOs, effective communication can be especially complicated, thus leading to problems. There are often different needs, different expectations, and very different agendas.

Excerpted from, The changing role of CR: A strategic opportunity in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

Going green at Fujitsu-Siemens

2006-04-04T08:16:00.000-07:00

Going green at Fujitsu-Siemens Computer

Two new European Union directives, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS) governing the manufacture ad recycling of electrical goods, mean products must now be designed with environmental consciousness in mind.

But at Fujitsu-Siemens computers, Augsburg, Germany, they've already made substantial savings in all areas of production, from power consumption to recycling and the level of waste material:

* Fujitsu-Siemens' Paderborn recycling facility can already recycle 98 percent of all received computer materials - well above the 75 percent required by the WEEE directive. Material can now be separated into 50 different groups.

* The Augsburg plant has reduced power consumption by 60 percent due reductions in component testing (a one percent reduction in power consumption is equivalent to the power used by fifty, one-family houses over the course of a year).

* 850,000 liters of water per year have been saved by using a new soldering process for the main computer circuit boards (equivalent to five, one-family houses over the course of a year).

* Use of lead on main circuit boards has been reduced from 12 grams to less than 3 grams, saving 4.5 tons of lead per year.

* Waste has been reduced by roughly 70 percent through optimization of packaging, waste and component recycling.

Excerpted from "Green Product development at Fujitsu-Siemens" in the April/May 2006 issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

How to develop a unique CR profile

2006-04-04T08:11:00.000-07:00

How to develop a unique CR profile

Over the last few years, John Elkington's metaphor of the Triple Bottom Line has proved a sustainable definition for corporate responsibility. But too often management cannot understand how it can be applied or, companies try to apply their CR approach and policies to the TBL concept, when they should actually be doing the reverse and applying the TBL to their company.

It's important to realise there is no "one-size-fits-all" CR policy and any company that thinks otherwise should be aware that such an approach would be damaging to CR initiatives in many ways, rather than these initiatives creating value for companies.

Here are six top tips to developing a unique CR profile for your company, using the Triple Bottom Line metaphor and a framework called the "18 Ps":

1. Responsibility: People - Planet - ProfitA company should specify which responsibilities it has, or wants to take up actively, on each pillar of the TBL and, what the relationship is between People and Planet on the one side, and Profit on the other. With non-financial responsibilities, it should establish if it's best to place an emphasis on either People or Planet and what the balance between the different pillars is.

2. Philosophy: Purpose - Principles - PragmatismThere should be a clear philosophy behind an active engagement in CR that guides corporate action. Part of this philosophy is the purpose or mission of the company: why does the company exist? Also, a company should make explicit the values that the company's built on and wants to pursue (principles). Third, the business case of CR for the company should be made clear in a pragmatic way. The European Corporate Sustainability Framework (ECSF) may be instrumental in determining the dominant CR philosophy by specifying the nature of the ambition a company has with CR: is it compliance-driven, business case-driven, community-driven, or innovation-driven?

3. Inclusivity: Priority - Participation - PartnershipThe notion of inclusivity refers to the importance of the inclusion of CR into the company's activities and to the practical organization of CR. Priority means that CR should be part of corporate agendas in terms of the strategic agenda, but also in a more practical stance such as agendas for meetings, communication and planning within and between the company's departments. CR should be an integral part of doing business and corporate behaviour.

4. Development: Progress - Perspective - PerformanceIn the development of its CR profile, a company should show the progress made in the process of realizing the CR profile in order to keep engaging people inside and outside the organization. It should make clear what the long-term perspective is by communicating a clear vision or ambition. Also, to enable further development, it's necessary to develop measures (preferably informed by stakeholder expectations), to set ambitious but not unrealistic goals, and to monitor the company's performance on these measures.

5. Integration: Product - Process - ProfileHere, it's the scope of CR within the company that should be determined. In terms of products and processes, the question is if CR is about bringing a sustainable product on a niche market or about integrating sustainability into all business processes (so that the regular products are produced in a responsible way). Or should the company be striving to profile itself on a company-level with CR through which it can for instance build a brand name based on CR?

6. Accountability: Personnel - Proprietors - PublicFinally, CR is about being willing and able as a company to account for CR initiatives and be held accountable for the claims it makes. A company should decide if and to what extent it wants to account for its actions internally and externally. It should also determine which instruments lend themselves best for these purposes.

Excerpted from "Developing a unique CR profile" by Lars Moratis and Sacha Mulder, Netherlands CSR Academy, in the April/May 2006 issue of Corporate responsibility Management.

THE HR NETWORK: How do I integrate two culturally different organizations?

2006-03-13T06:17:00.000-08:00

THE HR NETWORK: How do I integrate two culturally different organizations?

Keep abreast of the latest HR strategies and best practices with the HRNetwork, a global listserv for strategic HR professionals. Here's an exampleof a recent posting with one of the responses it generated:

Q: We're currently facing change management issues related to theintegration of another firm into ours. Culture, processes and habits arequite different and this results in difficulties integrating the two teamsto make them work together properly. We're thinking of offering an award orfinancial incentive to the team that shows they focus on integrating witheach other, or to the team that's already the best integrated. I'd reallyappreciate any ideas on this topic. - HR MANAGER, A TOP GLOBAL LAW FIRM

A: I wouldn't offer a reward for integration and cooperation that's monetarybecause you're now establishing a new incentive plan for behavior that'spart of everyone's job: "working together to serve the customer."

The best integrations seem to occur when the following factors are put in place andsupported by the top leadership team:

1. The clear and compelling reason the merger was formed to begin with. Whatare the market and competitive realities that make this important andcritical to survival? What major opportunities does this create for everyoneif successful?
2. Form a powerful guiding task team with membership from both companies tobe accountable for the integration. Incorporate this objective on theirappraisals and link these to existing performance reward systems.
3. Create and publish a vision of what the new company/entity will be ableto accomplish.
4. Communicate the new vision through every channel possible enlisting themost influential people.
5. Systematically evaluate what has to change in order to make the vision areality. Structures, processes, systems, people.6. Plan for and publish short-term wins.
7. On a quarterly basis, have total company reviews of the progress to date.

- HR SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, HUGHES SUPPLY

What do CEOs really think of HR?

2006-03-13T06:12:00.000-08:00

What do CEOs really think of HR?

Asked to rate the performance of various areas of their business, respondents to the Economist Intelligence Unit's latest annual CEO Briefingsurvey gave HR an emphatic thumbs-down. Alone of the functions under review,more people rated the performance of HR bad (6%) than excellent (4%).

No other function - not even the notoriously unlovable IT department - came close to being this unappreciated.The 555 senior executives from 68 countries were asked to choose which three business functions will be most important to realizing corporate strategy over the next three years: HR received only 16% of the votes, with sales and marketing rated at 56%.

Senior executives worldwide predict that their organizations will prioritize international markets over domestic ones in the next three years. They identified the importance of globalization to their strategic growth plans,with respondents expecting the proportion of revenue coming from overseas markets to jump by an average of one-third over the next three years.

Acquiring new customers is seen as the most important strategy for achieving revenue growth (58% of respondents). Increasing market share (53%) andgrowing revenue (50%) outstrip lowering the cost base as strategic priorities for executives.

Almost nine out of ten respondents regard the prospects for business globally as either good or very good, a marked increase on previous years. One paradox of globalization is that it increases the value of localknowledge. Understanding the needs of local customers in the differentmarkets as customers' tastes change and competition intensifies is thebiggest challenge that managers of global companies face, according to thesurvey.

To download the CEO Briefing report free of charge, visithttp://www.eiu.com/CorporatePriorities2006

The Latest on Workforce Race Relations

2006-03-01T20:16:00.000-08:00

The Latest on Workforce Race Relations

At least in the accounting profession, there is evidence that race still matters. According preliminary results of a December 2005 survey of 427 members of the National Association of Black Accountants (NABA), the profession still has a way to go.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents believe that because of their race, they have not always received unbiased/objective evaluations from their supervisors, and 55 percent sense that the mistakes they might make in the workplace directly impact the perception/evaluation of other members of their race.

Almost half think their non-minority counterparts with less technical competence or experience are given more high profile/challenging job assignments, and 63 percent feel no obligation to remain with their current employer.

For more information, visit www.nabainc.org.

Long-term Employees Not So Helpful?

2006-03-01T20:08:00.000-08:00

Long-term Employees Not So Helpful?

Unlike a fine wine, there's a good chance an employee who's been on the job for years isn't getting any better with time, new research by Cleveland-based human capital assessment firm PsyMax Solutions suggests.

The study of 2,300 behavioral profiles of executives, managers and other employees, found a steady drop in supportive behavior as a person's job tenure increases, PsyMax Solutions CEO Dr. Wayne Nemeroff said in a release issued last week.

"While someone's work style might ordinarily be expected to stay the same, we learned that in respect to one behavior there is a definite change," he said. "After three to five years on the job, there's less willingness to show concern, assist others or even act in a welcoming manner."

It seems that after several years on the job, that eagerness often just isn't there anymore. "Left to their own devices, some employees lose their unprompted readiness to reach out to others in their place of work," Nemeroff explained. "We surmise that people just become more task-oriented and set in their ways. They focus on getting the job done, and are not so engaged in supportive behavior."

For more information, visit www.psymaxsolutions.com.

Establishing a sustainable supply chain at Kraft

2006-02-28T18:22:00.000-08:00

Establishing a sustainable supply chain at Kraft

In 2003, Kraft foods announced a partnership with the Rainforest Alliance to incorporate and develop sustainable coffee programs into its supply chain.

Nearly three years later, we can demonstrate the growth of the program and its early successes:

* In 2004 Kraft purchased 2,400 tons of Rainforest Alliance certified [sustainable] coffee. In 2005, this figure was more than doubled to 6,400 tons. In 2006, Kraft will purchase 13,400 tons of certified coffee - enough to make 1.6 billion cups of coffee.

* The coffee purchased is blended directly into more than six major coffee brands including Maxwell House, Kenco, Carte Noire, Jacobs, Jaques Vabre and Gevalia. The coffee has also been used to launch three 100 percent sustainable brands, Kenco "Sustainable Development," Jaques Vabre "Cafe Pour Agir" and Gevalia "Ekologist."

Kraft buys as much as 40 percent of the coffee produced at Las Lajas, a coffee cooperative in El Salvador with 3,800 residents. The higher and consistent prices paid for the coffee by Kraft (usually between 8-12 US cents per pound of coffee) has allowed Las Lajas to:

* Invest US$40,000 in a much need drinking water distribution system.
* Plant over 30,000 trees in one year - many of them endangered species.
* Introduce weekly support visits to the farm by a local pediatrician - in many cases, the only doctor that the rural children see.

By 2005, just the second year of the partnership, sustainable coffee that Kraft purchased helped to:
* Support around 100,000 people in Central and South America.
* Preserve over 50,000 acres of rainforest.

Excerpted from "Forging a sustainable supply chain for the next 100 years at Kraft" by Tensie Whelan and Annemieke Wijn, in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

Training workers in CR

2006-02-28T18:17:00.000-08:00

Training workers in CR

In an ideal world, all those who represent a company; employees, agents, suppliers and the board, need to be competent in carrying out the company's values as expressed in CR policies and procedures.

After all, aren't all those who act on behalf of your company, workers in the field of CR, just as much as in the field of profit generation and sustainable brand value? Here are five top tips for using training to engage workers in CR.

1. CR training for company representatives is a 360-degree event. It's critical to know what staff members know about your policy and subsequently, what they've learned.

2. Bare in mind that you should be concerned not only with induction training, but ongoing learning within the organization, continuing education and ensuring continuous improvement in the use and usefulness of CR as a core tool for achieving corporate goals.

3. Examine your CR policy and define its areas; ethics, philanthropy, bribery and corruption, recycling rules, environmental standards and so on. Cover all the defined areas within the training.

4. Within training, use lots of discussions - not only of scenarios that could arise in your company, but also as opportunities for attendees to teach each other and share any knowledge and experiences they may have of CR.

5. Finally, use training as an opportunity for staff to scrutinize and give feedback on your CR policy and even your CR reports. This has many benefits including a clear opportunity for staff to input on company policy and can highlight areas of the policy or report that are unclear or need updating and, illustrate programs the company is already involved in.

Adapted from "Engaging workers via training" by Eileen Kohl Kaufman, in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

Preparing Your Organization for Change

2006-02-21T21:49:00.000-08:00

Preparing Your Organization for Change

The next time your business has a big change in the works, like, say corporate restructuring, or a new way of approaching work with clients, it might behoove your department to keep in mind some pointers, or best practices in change management, says Richard Axelrod, president of the Chicago-based Axelrod Group, and author of the 2004 book, “You Don’t Have to Do It Alone: How to Involve Others to Get Things Done.”

“The real foundation is about purpose,” says Axelrod of preparing your company’s employees for change, “being really clear about what you’re trying to create.” Sometimes the stated goal belies what really matters to an organization.

He says, for instance, that in his work with a hospital group, the stated goal was to get $30 million out of the budget, but in his discussions with organization leaders, it became apparent that the real goal was more closely related to quality.

“The real goal was to create a system that worked for docs and staff that provided the best healthcare possible in the most efficient way,” he notes. “So, they got their $30 million, they did achieve that, but it wasn’t the dollars driving it.

In this case, what they were trying to do is change culture and systems.” Keep in mind, he advises, that good change management isn’t so different from effective project management. He says to focus on “what’s going to be different as a result of this.”Once purpose is firmly understood, move onto deciding which persons in the company you’d like to involve to reach the goal.

While doing this, it’s important not to mislead potential participants about the level of involvement you are asking of them, Axelrod says. “I think the thing that really upsets people is when they think they have more of a voice or say than is actually being provided,” he explains.

“You have to be clear if this is something you’re just asking for feedback on, if the decision has already been made and you’re asking about implementation, or if it is wide open.” Meanwhile, it is also essential to set limits.

He says that by telling people what they’re not going to be able to do, you’re also helping them focus on where their input will actually be of use. “If you’re clear about limits, it gives people freedom because they know within this boundary I can put my energies, and I’m not putting my energies where I don’t need to put them.” At the same time, he cautions moderation in drawing the lines.

“If boundaries are too tight, people will say, ‘Why did you say you needed my input, when you’ve already decided what you want to do?’ If [the boundaries are] too loose, then people get lost.”

For more information, visit www.axelrodgroup.com.

Communicating about avian flu

2006-02-01T01:52:00.000-08:00

Communicating about avian flu

Q: We need to create a communication plan to talk to employees about avian flu. Can anyone share advice on communicating about this issue?
A: We've just completed what I think is a successful communications campaign for staff on the topic of avian flu. Our organization operates across more than 100 countries with a complement of staff (both expats and locals) in all these countries. We had to come up with a preparedness plan to ensure both the safety of our staff and continuity of business operations.

Our organization may have a higher level of awareness around the avian flu as we'll be called on to provide advice to governments on how to handle potential outbreaks. Nevertheless, there was anxiety among our staff and a need for organizationwide information.
We used a variety of channels to communicate ongoing work on the development of our preparedness plan. This included:

- periodic messages from our leadership emphasizing that the organization was working on developing plans and that staff safety was foremost;

- online interviews (both print and audio) with those leading the work on specific areas;a comprehensive website with our internal policies and action plans, references to outside resources, a running list of all the communications to date, and a list of constantly updated Q&As with ability for staff to submit questions;

- a comprehensive memo from the head of HR outlining the very specific steps which will kick into action if an epidemic progresses; and

- a town hall with all staff (streamed and available online) with a panel of six participants (HR, our health people, security, IT) to go over the plans and respond to further questions.

Judging from a quick survey we did, staff feel informed and confident in the actions the organization has taken thus far. Of course, there are many questions we can't answer until an outbreak actually happens, but for now, this is no longer the burning issue it was just a few weeks ago.

Michele EganSenior Communications OfficerThe World Bank Group
For more on how the World Bank prepares for crisis management, see the February/March 2005 issue of Strategic Communication Management.

Change efforts fail to reap rewards

2006-02-01T01:50:00.000-08:00

Change efforts fail to reap rewards

The majority of organizations believe they are effective at initiating change. But they are far less confident about the effectiveness of change communications, maintaining momentum and motivation, and their ability to reap the rewards of their change efforts.

These findings come from The Management Agenda 2006, the ninth annual survey on the issues and challenges facing managers at work produced by UK-based consultancy Roffey Park. The report shows that change has become a constant part of organizational life in all sectors, with a clear majority of respondents (89%) reporting that their organization has undergone structure and system changes in the last two years.

Respondents were asked to rate how effective their organizations are at managing different elements of change. The figures are almost identical to those reported in 2005:

82% consider their organizations effective at initiating change
72% feel they are able to maintain top-level involvement
63% say their organizations are effective at employee consultation
61% rate their organizations effective at planning and coordinating change
61% believe they are effective at implementing change

The ratings drop, however, when it comes to change communication, with only 54% of respondents claiming effectiveness in this area. This could have a direct impact on the elements of change which respondents feel their organizations are ineffective at. For example:

58% rate their organizations ineffective at maintaining momentum during change
62% say their organizations are ineffective at consolidating benefits
63% feel they are ineffective at reviewing and learning from change
64% say their organizations are ineffective at managing employee motivation

"Organizations still struggle to sustain a focus on the people aspects of change for long enough to gain the real benefits of change," say the report's authors. "Consequently, more restructuring occurs to try and achieve the desired benefits. Communication in particular needs to be more consistent and maintained for longer."

For more information about The Management Agenda 2006 visit: Roffey Park

Winning grass-roots support for change

2006-02-01T01:49:00.000-08:00

Winning grass-roots support for change

Persuading an executive team or the whole organization to make a fundamental change may take more than just a business case. Alastair Ham, director of organizational development at Norwich Union Insurance, learned this while guiding managers through a change process to help them become more effective team leaders and communicators. "At the time, this approach was so far away from the prevailing culture of the organization and the ingrained habits of managers that few would listen to the idea."
The trick, he says, was seeking commitment from stakeholders outside the executive team, creating a buzz and then waiting for a tipping point to be reached in terms of winning wider support. Here he offers five ways to win grass-roots support for changing behavior:
1 Be committed:
Before you start, ask yourself some questions. Do you believe the change you're trying to introduce is fundamental to the future of the organization? Is it totally aligned to the strategy? Are you prepared to invest yourself in making it happen? Don't start unless you believe in the importance of what you're trying to achieve and are prepared to put your job on the line.
2 Don't start at the top:
If possible, don't present a business case to your executive team. The risk of rejection is high and once leaders have said no, they'll defend their decision making it almost impossible to move forward.
3 Create converts:
Look for other stakeholders who can help – such as business unit or department heads and managers – and turn them into your supporters. What you're trying to do at this stage is set something up in a small part of the business that not only proves your point but creates emotional converts who can convert others.
4 Take it slowly:
It's not how fast you move, but how quickly you reach your goal. If what you're creating is genuinely a cultural change, few people will convert to it quickly or easily. They'll need to experience it for themselves and be given time to adjust to a new way of working.
5 Create a buzz and don't force it:
If you've been successful, your work will get noticed. Not as a dry business case, but as a genuine emotional experience demonstrated and talked about by the people involved in it. This is the kind of experience that drives change. Even if you do secure executive approval, don't use it as an excuse to force the change on everyone else. If the change is that fundamental, people will come to it at their own pace.

This is an edited extract from an article appearing in Strategic Communication Management.

How CR films helped The Body Shop

2006-02-01T01:36:00.000-08:00

In 1987, The Body Shop International and Jacaranda Productions produced one of the first CR-led global corporate videos. The idea was to produce regular video programs to convey The Body Shop's desire to communicate its values and sustainable initiatives to all staff. The result was, in survey after survey, Body Shop staff were shown to have the greatest commitment to their company's values of any UK business.

* "Body Shop World," a bi-monthly program aimed at staff in the 1,600 stores worldwide, was seen in 47 countries and translated into 19 languages.
* With Jacaranda, The Body Shop has now produced over 400 films, many focusing on global issues including human rights, animal testing and fair trade.
* Surveys showed The Body Shop to be the eighth most recognized brand in the world.What lessons can be learned from this?

Firstly, that The Body Shop's films proved how a company could integrate CR activity into its brand in such a way that the two became inseparable in the public mind.Another factor is the importance of starting close to home by communicating effectively with your own employees - these are the most powerful stakeholders and ambassadors you can have. Most crucially of all, the films proved that an engagement with CR could be an important driver of commercial success.Adapted from, "Filming credible corporate messages" by Katy Eyre, in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

Reporting Standard

2006-02-01T01:33:00.000-08:00

Choosing a reporting standard

A crucial issue for CR practitioners is which standards to adopt. You should seek standards that won't be just documents pulled out at reporting time, but integrated into company strategy to become a key part of company goals and values.

But what is a standard? How will you use the standard you choose? Will it address internal and external activity? Will it address human rights? Will your performance against the standard be publicly reported? How will the board be involved?

Go into the field and find CR standards that are specific and have metrics, which are:
1. Multi-stakeholder: Transparently developed by a multi-stakeholder coalition of subject experts. Check if the standard was developed in accordance with ISEAL's (the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling (ISEAL) Alliance) guidelines.Find a standard that's undergone complex and robust development, where stakeholder concerns, expertise and different sectors and points of view contributed to its completeness, materiality and clarity. Its credibility derives from being developed in a multi-stakeholder, consensus-based process, periodically revised, reviewed and commented on by users.
2. Verifiable: Clearly written and specific enough for performance against it to be verified, even though not all users seek external verification.
3. Legitimate: Based on established, defined and widely accepted principles, the SA8000 for example.
4. Comprehensive and appropriate: Include the issues your stakeholders consider important and expect you to address. Make it clear to your stakeholders what you aspire to and commit to, so they can rally around. It's a big job to work to meet any of the sustainability standards around. You don't want to distract from that by choosing a weak standard.
5. Appropriate: In coverage and requirements. An environmental standard today needs to speak to global warming, for example.People often comment, "there are thousands of standards, many are very specific, to industry, to product type." Sometimes in the past there's been a paralysis: too many choices, "let's wait on the sideline until the dust clears and there's only one path."

Some currently are tempted to do that and wait for ISO26000 (a new Social Responsibility (SR) standard). However, ISO26000 is not going to be a performance standard but management guidelines on how to use standards that a company chooses according to its specific CR criteria.Once you've surveyed the field and agreed with stakeholders on the standard(s) that you will use, it's time for the real work to begin.

Excerpted from "Choosing a reporting standard" by Eileen Kohl Kaufman in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

The size of CR budgets

2005-12-14T18:41:00.000-08:00

The size of CR budgets

How much do corporations spend per annum on operational CR? Here are six key findings from a recent survey* with over 600 respondents of small and large companies including Rolls Royce, BAE Systems, Barclays, Intel, Shell and Siemens:

- On average, CR budgets fall somewhere between US$100,000 and US$1 million.

- As expected, larger companies generally have larger CR budgets although 4o percent of respondents had a CR budget falling in to the US$100,000 to US$1 million bracket in both small and large companies.

- A plurality of companies with more than 10,000 employees (40 percent) spend just as much as a plurality of small companies (also 40 percent), suggesting that either smaller companies are overspending or larger companies are underspending.

- Six percent of small and large companies had NO CR budget

- When asked to give figures for full-time and part-time staff, vendors and consultants, more than a third of companies said they spent nothing on consultants and vendors.

- A quarter of companies spend between US$10,000 and US$100,000 on consultants and vendors.

* Statistics taken from the new Melcrum research report "How to structure the corporate responsibility function" by Jason Sumner.

Awareness and Readership

2005-12-14T18:33:00.000-08:00

TOP TIPS: Improving focus and increasing awareness and readership of CR reports

Once you've put all the hard work into producing your CR report do you sit back and watch as barely anyone reads it or takes interest? Do you receive correspondence from disappointed readers claiming it's missing key components or there's not enough detail?

Here are 10 top tips to improve the focus and increase the awareness and readership of your CR report:

Improving focus

1. Consider that most CR reports are currently failing to meet the requirements and expectations of nearly all readers. Make sure you understand who your audiences are and how best to tailor your report to their different needs.

2. Don't try and satisfy too many stakeholder groups in the one report. It will make your report bloated and negate the impact of the most important issues within.

3. Consider a recent report by Pleon ("Accounting for Good: The Global Stakeholder Report 2005," ), which recommends you don't try to reach consumers with your CR report as they will neither read nor value it. Instead, target consumers with marketing, advertising and communications on selected issues of relevance.

4. When producing a one-size-fits-all report for multiple audiences, consider its design. Structure it by stakeholder group and color-code various sections so readers can easily locate what they're interested in.

5. Invite feedback and look to implement any submitted points or ideas into future reports.

Improving awareness and readership

1. Send an advance copy of the report to every single senior executive in the company with a signed letter from the CEO asking executives to review the report, become familiar with its content and promote it internally and externally (within presentations, meetings, etc).

2. Give employees a heads-up a few days before the report is published. Let them know the report is on its way with a graphic ad on the homepage of your corporate intranet site and all business sites.

3. Make some fuss on publication day with a full announcement on the intranet and business sites and send an e-mail from the CEO to every employee informing them of the report publication.

4. Let employees know when the report has arrived. Just like socks in the wash, cartons of CR reports seemingly get lost in transit or disappear under desks. Try using the cartons themselves as communication tools. Stick a bright orange sticker on each carton saying "Corporate Responsibility Report enclosed - open immediately and distribute." Inside the box, include a one-page note explaining why people are getting the report and other relevant pieces of information such as how to get more copies.

5. Finally, keep promoting the report long after publication. Create an advert for the company magazine and intranet to maintain visibility and awareness of its existence after the initial rush.

Adapted from "Promoting CR reports at RBC" by Lynn Patterson, in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

Motivating employees with positive feedback

2005-11-27T23:20:00.000-08:00

Motivating employees with positive feedback

In conversations with your team, and when training line managers, use these tips to make sure performance feedback helps increase employee motivation levels.

1. Be transparent. Make sure people are clear about what excellence in their role looks like - as opposed to acceptable performance - and what they need to do to move up. They need to see which skills are premium at the next level, particularly at transitional stages such as moving from operational
to strategic leadership roles.

2. Use internal feedback. Even in the best employee/manager relationships, direct feedback lacks the weight of colleague opinion. Ask respondents for strengths that have most impact on this person's contribution. What development areas could make the biggest difference?

3. Use external feedback. Assessment centers and psychometric inventories can deliver feedback that's perceived to be objective. An independent third party's feedback is objective and for difficult messages, it avoids embarrassment and offers privacy. Such companies typically offer benchmarking data to help assess the quality of your people against other organizations.

4. And now...do something! Feedback should never be given in terms of "passing or failing" or it will quickly become discredited. Research shows that if nothing is done with an assessment's results, performance will dip. Solutions must be put in place with sustained managerial support. Short-term
fixes, like courses, deliver improvements, but to be sustained they need to be applied to the job.

5. Create an opportunity-rich environment. Organizations are often unimaginative about who might perform projects, so think laterally about how teams could be deployed. Assign projects beyond the usual suspects and give people something new to stretch them within their current role, but protect
them from failure with regular coaching meetings.

Source: "How to discuss performance positively and provide useful feedback" by Lucy McGee, director at global HR consultancy, DDI. Strategic HR Review Vol. 5, Issue 1, Nov/Dec 2005

KPMG finds dramatic rise in level of CR reporting

2005-11-15T03:24:00.000-08:00

KPMG finds dramatic rise in level of CR reporting

The 2005 international survey on corporate responsibility reporting, conducted by KPMG International's Global Sustainability Services and the University of Amsterdam, has found a dramatic rise in the number of top global companies producing CR reports.

The survey, the fourth in a triennial series, found that CR reporting has been on the increase since 1993, with a particularly substantial rise over the last three years.

In 2002, 52 percent of G250 companies issued separate CR reports, an increase of 7 percent since 2002. If the figures for 2005 are adjusted to include those companies that published CR information as part of their annual report, they rise to 64 percent and 41 percent respectively. The type of reports being produced has also undergone significant change, with a shift from environmental, health and safety reports (70 percent of both global and national reports in 2002) to social, environmental and economic sustainability reports (70 percent of G250 reports in 2005).

Japan and the UK are the current leaders in producing separate CR reports (at 80 percent and 71 percent of companies respectively), although Japan has experienced fairly slow growth in this measure since 2002, an increase of only 8 percent (the number of companies producing separate CR reports in the UK has risen by 22 percent since 2002).

Canada and France follow Japan and the UK at some distance, with the number of companies producing CR reports in these countries at 41 percent and 40 percent respectively. The worst performers in this respect were Norway (15 percent) and Belgium (9 percent).

In terms of industry sectors, finance (which has traditionally had much a lower incidence of CR reporting - perhaps unsurprisingly, given its nature) has shown the highest increase in recent years.

While the oil and gas industry has been at the forefront of environmental and sustainability reporting for years, around half of this has been included in these companies' annual reports rather than separately. Still, the total percentage of G250 oil and gas companies providing some form of CR reporting is high at 80 percent, up 22 percent from 2002.

“Economic and ethical considerations” and increased pressure from stakeholders for non-financial information, were found to be the main drivers of the increase in reporting.
The full survey can be downloaded from: http://www.kpmg.com/Rut2000_prod/Documents/9/Survey2005.pdf.

Eight key points to ensure CR and sustainability reports are relevant

2005-11-15T03:23:00.000-08:00

Eight key points to ensure CR and sustainability reports are relevant

The varied audience of a prospective CR or sustainability report raises difficulties for companies. How do you respond to all parties in the same document? Analysis of foreign studies and sustainability reports shows the following eight points must be considered to ensure relevance.

1. Commitment of management
Every study stresses the importance of management commitment at the highest level, and of expressing the support and involvement of management in sustainability reporting.

2. Corporate values and principles
The sustainability report is a means of describing a company's specific approach, values and culture. Instruments and methods used by organizations for managing their performance in terms of sustainability include charters or codes of conduct, internal regulations, standards, external voluntary initiatives, and management systems.

3. The provision of information on objectives and the resources applied
The reports should encompass the past and future objectives of the company in order to allow precise measurement of its performance. Many of the best sustainability reports set out quantitative and precise objectives.

4. Identifying and ranking CSR risks
An understanding of the sustainability issues linked to the company's activities is essential and forms the basis for the credibility of the reports. Paradoxically, a sustainability report that deals with “sensitive” subjects has enhanced credibility and improves the company's image. For a company simply to acknowledge a problem, even if it has no answer, is a factor in leadership and influences the views of rating agencies, the media, stakeholders and so on.

5. Means of verification introduced
Although the concept of “verification” as it concerns sustainability reports is still poorly defined, it can cover three types of factors: quantitative data, actions taken by the company (circulating a code of conduct, setting up a management system, and so on), and acknowledgement by the company of the impacts of its activities and of the expectations of its stakeholders, notably as regards its choice of indicators and objectives.

6. Results in all three areas of sustainability
The definition of good social and environmental performance is still strongly dependent on cultural background and particular business sector, making it more difficult to select relevant overall social indicators. A company's economic impact is still the area that is least developed in sustainability reports; aspects such as a company's contribution to the economic development of the countries in which it has a presence are only rarely reported, and this is still a challenge for most reports.

7. Views of the stakeholders
One of the first steps for a company to take in preparing the sustainability report is to get to know its stakeholders. Some companies devote several pages to the subject, providing a comprehensive list of identified stakeholders, with a profile of each group, the means of dialogue employed, the main expectations expressed, and key performance indicators corresponding to these expectations.

8. Impact and reaction
A number of methods for consulting stakeholders can be used, such as interviews with experts, stakeholder meetings, or even integrating stakeholders into the organization (by means of a consultative committee, for example).

Adapted from Assessing the French experience with mandatory CR reporting, in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

Employees cynical about company values

2005-11-13T19:16:00.000-08:00

Employees cynical about company values

Only a small minority of employees believe that their organization's values are consistent with what it actually rewards, according to a survey from Mercer Human Resources Consulting.

The consultancy interviewed 1,100 UK employees and found that only 35% of respondents thought rewards matched company values, while 58% thought their organization communicated its values clearly.

Fewer than half of respondents (45%) think management behaves in a way that's consistent with organizational values and 48% think there's sufficient contact between managers and employees. Fewer than four in 10 employees (36%) trust senior managers to communicate honestly, down slightly from 39% in 2002.

The survey also found lower levels of trust in the UK than in the US, where it recently carried out a similar survey. In the US, trust was slightly higher with 40% of employees believing that managers' communications were honest.

Dr Patrick Gilbert, head of organizational research and effectiveness at Mercer, said company values provide a touchstone for guiding and evaluating behavior: Values only become meaningful if managers adopt them and lead by example. If these values are ignored by those at the top of the organization, employees can become disaffected and cynical.

Source: Mercer Human Resource Consulting.

New survey dispels HR career myths

2005-11-06T05:36:00.000-08:00

New survey dispels HR career myths

A survey of more than 1,800 HR professionals, conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, has discovered that HR professionals are happy with their career choice. Key findings include:

* 81% of respondents said they enjoyed their jobs, and would work in HR if they had their time again.
* The average HR director has 20 years' HR experience, has worked in four different organizations and has got to where they are today via five major career steps.
* 83% of respondents have worked outside HR at some stage in their careers.
* Respondents listed personal drive, business/industry awareness and generalist experience as most important when pursuing an HR career.
* 40% of participants feel outsourcing is having a negative impact on HR careers.
* Although two-thirds feel they have access to good development opportunities in their current jobs, less than half think they can achieve their next career move with their current employer.

Jessica Jarvis, CIPD learning, training and development adviser and the report’s author, said: “A profession where the vast majority would pick the same career path is a confident one that is happy with itself.”

Source: “HR: Where is your career heading?” http://www.cipd.co.uk/surveys

The 12 rules for creating successful business-charity partnerships

2005-10-24T23:48:00.000-07:00

The 12 rules for creating successful business-charity partnerships

Creating partnerships can be a precarious business. Many fall at the first hurdle because of a lack of mutual trust, respect and loyalty, or because of a poorly defined cause focus and incompatible objectives. Partnerships can fail because a charity feels that they own a cause, or a business is unprepared for the changes within the company that a charity partnership can lead to. Harmonious management styles between the partners are vital, as is due diligence, transparency and the setting up of robust success measures. Follow these 12 tips to get the most from a business-charity partnership.

1. Accountability - The charity must be able to maintain clear accountability to its own key trustees and other stakeholders, and retain independence from the business partner. At the same time, the business should not try to become the charity.

2. Authenticity - A company must be serious about driving change in its own business, within the sector or across the business community as a whole.

3. Alignment to core purpose or product - There must be an obvious link between the company and the cause.

4. Authority - Individual participants must have sufficient authority to make critical decisions on a day-to-day basis.

5. Benefits - There must be measurable social benefit; that is, the partnership must make a real difference to people's lives. Organizational benefits for each partner must also be understood.

6. Communication - There must be the potential for visibility and story telling.

7. Engagement of employees and customers - There must be opportunities for employee involvement and benefit for customers.

8. Equality - Both partners need to step up to the table as equal partners and be recognized as such throughout the relationship.

9. Issues management - There must be agreement to work together to resolve disputes or conflicts in a constructive and respectful way. Decide up front what would render the partnership untenable and agree a process for formal notice of termination of the contract.

10. Measurement - Both partners must see a tangible return on their investment and understand each other's definitions of success. Appropriate mechanisms to monitor progress must be agreed up front.

11. Rules of engagement - These need to be clearly agreed at the outset.

12. Trust - Both partners must trust each other implicitly and understand each other's needs and motivations for working together.

Adapted from "The new world of company giving" in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

Seven steps to stress prevention

2005-10-23T01:31:00.000-07:00

Seven steps to stress prevention

1. Organizational effectiveness begins with personal effectiveness. Give people tools that help raise awareness of sources and sinks of their time so they can see how to manage it better.

2. Helping people take control of their time, especially when working outside traditional business hours, will help them to prevent stressful situations from arising.

3. The psychological contract may need to be re-assessed as virtual workingbecomes more the norm. Access to critical knowledge should not imposeunacceptable demands on people’s availability.

4. It’s better to prevent stress than to manage it. Thinking ahead andanticipating what time and knowledge will be needed by whom will make itmore likely that people will be able to cope with pressures when they arise.

5. Organizations must be dynamic and responsive – don’t rely on anend-of-year survey to tell you that things have gone wrong.

6. Different personality types may be stressed or engaged by differentbehaviors or requests. Coaching people to share and acquire knowledge moreeffectively will be a vital complement to any formal corporate rules andprocesses.

7. Build teams around knowledge competencies, not just formal qualificationsand previous roles held. Many people can benefit from having ready access tocolleagues who can find, synthesize, reframe and translate elements ofknowledge into a useful and usable language and format.

Source: "HR and the parameters of knowledge, stress and time," by KatrinaDelargy and Heather Chatten, Strategic HR Review Vol. 4, Issue 5, July/August 2005

Recruitment Data Capture Still Mostly Offline

2005-10-23T01:15:00.000-07:00

Recruitment Data Capture Still Mostly Offline

According to research conducted by Aurora, Ont.-based Web portal HR.com, 75 percent of organizations capture information about the recruitment process the old-fashioned way. Based on a survey of more than 500 senior managers and executives, the recently published "Talent Management Metrics: A Survey of Current Practices" reports that even among larger companies companies with 20,000 employees or more the proportion using an online system to access recruitment data is less than 60 percent. The payoff for those that go the online route, though, is substantial, according to the paper's author, HR.com Director of Research Claude Balthazard, Ph.D. Balthazard says that online systems offer enhanced use of recruitment metrics, easier processes, and employees who are more than twice as likely to be satisfied with their recruitment metrics interface.

CR reports fail to convince financial sector

2005-10-22T04:24:00.000-07:00

CR reports fail to convince financial sector

The quality of corporate reports on social responsibilities may have risen, but they consistently fail to meet the expectations of a major target group: the financial services sector, with its associated analysts, investors and shareholders. This is one of the key findings of Accounting for Good: The Global Stakeholder Report 2005, a survey of 500 global readers of CR reports from 58 countries, a new report by Pleon. The study found that, although the importance of CR within the financial services sector has increased considerably in the past few years, it is this group that gets the least from sustainability reports. According to the survey, the prime reason for this disparity is that the economic arguments for corporate sustainability and social commitments are not convincingly explained.

Generally however, readers of CR reports are more satisfied with the quality of reports than they were two years ago. For instance, reporting on social issues was described by 55.2 percent of respondents as being “fully” or “to some extent” in line with their expectations (an increase of 6.5 percent from 2003). The survey also revealed that the most important issues of a CR report, from a stakeholder perspective, are the management of human rights, ecological and energy efficiency in business operations, and health and safety of employees.

The full report, as well as a background paper, is available for download from Pleon's website.

http://www.pleon.com/

Meaning of Corporate social responsibility (CSR)

2005-10-22T04:21:00.000-07:00

Meaning of Corporate social responsibility (CSR)

CSR is an expression used to describe what some see as a company’s obligation to be sensitive to the needs of all of its stakeholders in its business operations. The principle is closely linked with the imperative of ensuring that these operations are "sustainable" i.e. that it is recognised that it is necessary to take account not only of the financial/economic dimension in decision making also the social and environmental consequences "Sustainable Development".

A company’s stakeholders are all those who are influenced by and/or can influence a company’s decisions and actions, both locally and globally. These include (but are not limited to): employees, customers, suppliers, community organizations, subsidiaries and affiliates, joint venture partners, local neighbourhoods, investors, and shareholders (or a sole owner).

In other word: CSR is about how companies manage the business processes to produce an overall positive impact on society.

Considering the business opportunities within CR programs

2005-10-22T04:12:00.000-07:00

Considering the business opportunities within CR programs

Although more companies are talking about CR, many still see it as something they must do to satisfy stakeholders, who we know often don't have profit-making in mind. Too often, CR and sustainability are still treated as a “bolt-on” to business operations rather than being built in to business purpose and strategy.

David Grayson, author of “Corporate Social Opportunities” says the terminology of corporate social responsibility suggests burden, outlay and obligation, but more emphasis should be given to the opportunity that can come from a genuine commitment to sustainability and CR - the opportunity to find new products and services, new markets, and new business models.

Here are three methods and examples of organizations gaining from CR and sustainability programs.

1. New products: Think creatively - investment in CR and sustainability programs will likely lead to new product lines developed with these attributes. For example, Mexico-based Cemex is the third largest cement company in the world. Creative thinking has led the company to invent a concrete mix with an added anti-bacterial agent that, when used for flooring in low-cost housing projects provides built in health protection. When used in hospitals and clinics, the treated concrete not only helps kill germs but also means less expensive (and potentially less polluting) cleaning agents can be used.

2. Get ahead of competitors: Aligning your company with sustainable programs can improve its global standing and put it ahead of competitors. Vodafone, the largest mobile communications company in the world, has recently established a whole new product and marketing department to explore products that have both commercial and social benefit. Vodafone's use of a sustainability program saw the organization reach third place in the 2005 Accountability Rating®, a corporate accountability rating of FORTUNE Global 100® companies, which was recently announced by international think-tank AccountAbility and consultancy CSR Network. The rating scores companies on how seriously their future decisions will consider social and environmental issues. Vodafone were only behind oil companies BP and Royal Dutch Shell.

3. Gain insight beyond the usual corporate domains: Working with non-profit organizations and other NGOs can prove a valuable source of insight and capacity that can produce commercially viable products and services which also meet social and environmental goals. Scope, the charity that helps sufferers of cerebral palsy, has just launched its latest charity-business program called “Diversity Works” which involves partnering with a number of businesses including BT, KPMG and Lehman Bros. Diversity Works aims to develop and deploy learning amongst the partners involved on how to find, recruit, train and support the development of young disabled Britons with leadership potential. Business partners benefit by getting help to attract and retain a wider pool of talent.

Adapted from “From responsibility to opportunity” by David Grayson in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

RESOURCES: Myths and facts of communicating sustainability

2005-10-18T16:03:00.000-07:00

RESOURCES: Myths and facts of communicating sustainability

A roving “Environment Train” exhibition in Algeria, a radio series on pesticide pollution in Vietnam and a novel ozone layer awareness campaign in Costa Rica are among 16 innovative public campaigns featured in a new guidebook from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The guide, Communicating Sustainability - How to Produce Effective Public Campaigns - provides national and local governments with professional advice on how to implement communications campaigns on environment and development issues.

It covers the myths and facts of communications and proposes useful resources, as well as offering hints on how to get the best out of communications agencies.

“The impacts of our consumption patterns are no longer vague and invisible,” writes UNEP executive director Klaus Toepfer in his foreword to the guide. “Public communication has a key role to play to make sustainable development approachable and understandable. Informed, motivated and committed people can help us to achieve our sustainability goals,” he says. “However, communicating effectively about sustainable lifestyles is a challenge,” Mr. Toepfer continues. “One needs to consider not only what to communicate, but how to communicate it. The lesson to be learned is that communication styles have to be positive and tailored to different circumstances and cultural contexts.

Communicating sustainability can be downloaded from UNEP's website at http://www.unep.fr/sustain or from Futerra's website at http://www.futerra.org/publications.

Considering the business opportunities within CR programs

2005-10-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

Considering the business opportunities within CR programs

Although more companies are talking about CR, many still see it as something they must do to satisfy stakeholders, who we know often don't have profit-making in mind. Too often, CR and sustainability are still treated as a “bolt-on” to business operations rather than being built in to business purpose and strategy.

David Grayson, author of “Corporate Social Opportunities” says the terminology of corporate social responsibility suggests burden, outlay and obligation, but more emphasis should be given to the opportunity that can come from a genuine commitment to sustainability and CR - the opportunity to find new products and services, new markets, and new business models.

Here are three methods and examples of organizations gaining from CR and sustainability programs.

1. New products: Think creatively - investment in CR and sustainability programs will likely lead to new product lines developed with these attributes. For example, Mexico-based Cemex is the third largest cement company in the world. Creative thinking has led the company to invent a concrete mix with an added anti-bacterial agent that, when used for flooring in low-cost housing projects provides built in health protection. When used in hospitals and clinics, the treated concrete not only helps kill germs but also means less expensive (and potentially less polluting) cleaning agents can be used.

2. Get ahead of competitors: Aligning your company with sustainable programs can improve its global standing and put it ahead of competitors. Vodafone, the largest mobile communications company in the world, has recently established a whole new product and marketing department to explore products that have both commercial and social benefit. Vodafone's use of a sustainability program saw the organization reach third place in the 2005 Accountability Rating®, a corporate accountability rating of FORTUNE Global 100® companies, which was recently announced by international think-tank AccountAbility and consultancy CSR Network. The rating scores companies on how seriously their future decisions will consider social and environmental issues. Vodafone were only behind oil companies BP and Royal Dutch Shell.

3. Gain insight beyond the usual corporate domains: Working with non-profit organizations and other NGOs can prove a valuable source of insight and capacity that can produce commercially viable products and services which also meet social and environmental goals. Scope, the charity that helps sufferers of cerebral palsy, has just launched its latest charity-business program called “Diversity Works” which involves partnering with a number of businesses including BT, KPMG and Lehman Bros. Diversity Works aims to develop and deploy learning amongst the partners involved on how to find, recruit, train and support the development of young disabled Britons with leadership potential. Business partners benefit by getting help to attract and retain a wider pool of talent.

Adapted from “From responsibility to opportunity” by David Grayson in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management. T

Best Pratice: production Improvement Programs

2005-10-16T14:18:00.000-07:00

A.G. Edwards uses Production-Improvement Programs to Boost Training Results

When St. Louis, Mo.-based investment services provider A.G. Edwards & Sons noticed that the production of its financial consultants was stagnating, it began offering production-improvement programs. Graduates of the programs now often grow their commissions 20 to 30 percent over firm averages.

Interpersonal Failure

2005-10-01T06:25:00.000-07:00

Interpersonal Failure

According to a new study by Leadership IQ, a leadership training and research company in Washington,D.C., 46 percent of newly hired employees will fail within 18 months, and only 19 percent will achieve unequivocal success. But it isn't technical skills that these new hires lack it's interpersonal skills.

The study, conducted over three years, surveyed 5,247 hiring managers from 312 public, private, business and health-care organizations about their failed hires, defined as anyone who was terminated, departed under pressure, or received disciplinary action or significantly negative performance reviews. Collectively these managers hired more than 20,000 employees during the study period.

The results showed that the top reason given for 26 percent of new hires who failed was that they couldn't accept feedback. For another 23 percent, the main problem was that they were unable to understand and manage their own emotions, or assess those of others. A lack of necessary technical skills was the primary reason for failure for just 11 percent of failed hires.

The survey data revealed another troubling finding: Eighty-two percent of respondents reported that in hindsight, their interview process with these employees elicited subtle clues that the hire could be a bad one. But during the interviews, managers were too focused on other issues, too pressed for time, or lacked confidence in their interviewing abilities to heed warning signs.

"The typical interview process fixates on ensuring that new hires are technically competent," explains Mark Murphy, CEO of Leadership IQ. "Technical competence remains the most popular subject of interviews because it's easy to assess. But while technical competence is easy to assess, it's a lousy predictor of whether a newly hired employee will succeed or fail."

BT announces record return-to-work rate after pregnancy

2005-09-28T10:29:00.000-07:00

BT announces record return-to-work rate after pregnancy

BT has announced that 99 percent of women return to work at the company after maternity leave. This is more than twice the national average figure of 47 percent. BT directly attributes this success to its best practice policy on home working and its flexible approach to work.

The company offers its female employees the opportunity to take up to a year's paid maternity leave and a range of flexible working arrangements following the birth of their child. This allows mothers to meet the demands of their job while spending as much time as possible with their child.

Fathers can also take two weeks' paid and two weeks' unpaid paternity leave as well as having the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of working flexibly.

Caroline Waters, director of BT People and Policy, says: “The return-to-work rate is outstanding for a company of our size. Supporting the parents in your workforce isn't difficult, disruptive or expensive, it's just plain business sense. Just a small change in working patterns combined with an attractive maternity package has enabled us to retain the skills of 99 percent of our working mums, saving costs and ensuring that the diversity of the BT workforce continues to grow.”

Exchanging their BT salary for childcare provision can cut parents' costs by up to 30 percent. The company offers discounts negotiated with leading nursery providers.

10,000 BT people are currently homeworkers, with many others taking advantage of the range of flexible working options available, such as term-time working, job sharing and part-time working. The company encourages all employees, and in particular new parents, to use its flexible working policies to support their work-life balance.

The 12 rules for creating successful business-charity partnerships

2005-09-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

The 12 rules for creating successful business-charity partnerships

Creating partnerships can be a precarious business. Many fall at the first hurdle because of a lack of mutual trust, respect and loyalty, or because of a poorly defined cause focus and incompatible objectives. Partnerships can fail because a charity feels that they own a cause, or a business is unprepared for the changes within the company that a charity partnership can lead to. Harmonious management styles between the partners are vital, as is due diligence, transparency and the setting up of robust success measures. Follow these 12 tips to get the most from a business-charity partnership.

1. Accountability - The charity must be able to maintain clear accountability to its own key trustees and other stakeholders, and retain independence from the business partner. At the same time, the business should not try to become the charity.

2. Authenticity - A company must be serious about driving change in its own business, within the sector or across the business community as a whole.

3. Alignment to core purpose or product - There must be an obvious link between the company and the cause.

4. Authority - Individual participants must have sufficient authority to make critical decisions on a day-to-day basis.

5. Benefits - There must be measurable social benefit; that is, the partnership must make a real difference to people's lives. Organizational benefits for each partner must also be understood.

6. Communication - There must be the potential for visibility and story telling.

7. Engagement of employees and customers - There must be opportunities for employee involvement and benefit for customers.

8. Equality - Both partners need to step up to the table as equal partners and be recognized as such throughout the relationship.

9. Issues management - There must be agreement to work together to resolve disputes or conflicts in a constructive and respectful way. Decide up front what would render the partnership untenable and agree a process for formal notice of termination of the contract.

10. Measurement - Both partners must see a tangible return on their investment and understand each other's definitions of success. Appropriate mechanisms to monitor progress must be agreed up front.

11. Rules of engagement - These need to be clearly agreed at the outset.

12. Trust - Both partners must trust each other implicitly and understand each other's needs and motivations for working together.

Adapted from “The new world of company giving” in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

Developing a consistent planning approach

2005-09-26T23:08:00.000-07:00

Developing a consistent planning approach
Cutting out message overload, repetition and inconsistency

By Bill Quirke and Richard Bloomfield

The complexity and frequency of communication taking place in many organizations can have dire consequences for the target audience, namely employees. Key messages get drowned out by trivia, repetition bores the audience, and inconsistency undermines trust and credibility. Here, Bill Quirke introduces the "air traffic control" approach to managing and prioritizing the many layers of organizational communication.

There's an old saying that to "fail to plan is to plan to fail." Corny as it may sound, this is a salutary reminder that as communicators we can't rely on last minute inspiration if we really want to deliver results. On the other hand, John Lennon reminded us that "life is what happens when you're busy making plans."

Which brings me to my point: the secret to successful communication planning is getting the balance right. The communicator who focuses on reams of beautiful communication plans will fall victim to analysis paralysis, hypnotized by all the interdependencies. On the other hand, whoever plans on the proverbial cigarette packet will eventually lose all sense of strategic direction.

Key areas to focus on:
In our experience, successful organizations plan communication at three levels:

1) The bigger picture - ensuring that communication is supporting the priorities for the business, and that key strategic initiatives are "on the radar."

2) The communication picture - clarity about the key messages that communicators must get across, what other communicators are planning and how can they work together better to reduce the risk of duplication and confusion.

3) The local picture - specific projects and initiatives - helping ensure that project managers use the same approach to communication planning, so that local activity can be prioritized and coordinated.

Before we look at these three areas of focus in more detail, let's revisit why planning is such an important part of the communicators' toolkit.

Why planning is important

Planning is high on the agenda for effective communicators for a number of good reasons. Communication directors are tired of having to keep a wary eye out for unexpected and unwelcome communication from within their own organizations. It's hard enough trying to cope with a volatile external environment without fearing you may fall victim to the "friendly fire" of unplanned internal communication.

Global heads of communication want to ensure that they've got a coordinated picture of what's going on in individual countries and divisions and functions. For their part, individual countries don't want to have unexpected, time-consuming, and inappropriate communication initiatives dropped on them out of the blue from the global center.

In matrix organizations, the number of communicators seems to increase geometrically. As soon as one baron within the business hires their own communicator, the air quickly becomes thick with newsletters, mousemats and roadshows. Large change programs with large budgets enable gifted amateurs or outside consultants to engage in "check book communication," in which they can buy share of voice by out-spending their more constrained colleagues in the corporate communication departments.

Communication overload

Organizations are waking up to the fact that while internal communication is a good thing, you can have too much of it. They're shifting from an informal competition between various communicators to creating greater collaboration that allows the company to present a more coherent face to the business.

Employees continually complain of initiative overload, while functions at the center, change initiatives in the change program office, and the global chief executive's office all pursue what we call "flat pack communication." This is where the employee receives communication from all corners of the globe, without any coherent picture about how it's all supposed to fit together.

They're forced to bolt bits of communication together in the hope of building a coherent picture. No wonder the final result looks skewed.

Organizations are now waking up to the need for far greater coherence - so that each piece of communication reinforces rather than contradicts others, and that all stakeholders get a consistent picture. Getting that degree of coherence and consistency in complex organizations demands careful planning and collaboration between communicators.

Inconsistency undermines credibility

In external communication, inconsistent messages undermine brand and reputation. Internally, different and inconsistent communication can unnerve employees and reinforce their suspicions. In times of change, employees look for the signals to indicate what could be the real agendas of their leaders.

Employees become "Kremlin watchers" watching every nuance of communication from each of the leadership team to find out where the splits are, who's in and who's out, and what's really happening. Inconsistent messages from the top team can signal splits and fuel conspiracies that are often based on simple misunderstanding.

Most organizations now understand that the barrier to effective engagement of their employees isn't the amount of budget left to stage roadshows, or indeed the number of trees left from which to make newsletters. The real scarce resource is the amount of time and attention they can get from their people.

Unless the organization is clear on its priorities and focused in what it says, people will tune out. More and more organizations are finding that far from generating greater illumination, increasing communication actually creates inconsistency, confusion and clutter.

So what can practitioners do to improve the planning process? The following steps will help reduce message overload and inconsistency.

Step 1: The bigger picture
The first step entails looking at the bigger picture. At this level, organizations want to:

• reduce volume and eliminate duplication;
• make sure that what goes out is high quality and coordinated;
• allow space for people to make sense of the messages they receive;
• ensure that key messages get the most airtime.
This means greater prioritizing and reduction in the quantity of messages. Doing this involves a process of what we call "Air Traffic Control."

This is a process for plotting what's on the business agenda, identifying the relative priority of different initiatives, and mapping who is likely to be affected by them. Air Traffic Control then allocates time and space to planned communications according to how important they are to the business and their priority, rather than who can shout the loudest.

This introduces an element of co-ordination and control of internal communication, and reduces the number of unexpected or unannounced, high-impact initiatives.

Step 2: The communication community
At this level, the organization should:

• agree common approaches for communicators;
• agree priorities and key messages;
• coordinate communication from different parts of the business.

While communicators should respond to the specific needs of the part of the business in which they operate, they need to do so in a common and consistent way. To enable this, the organization should establish common approaches, principles and standards for communicators to follow, and create opportunities for practitioners to get together and exchange best practices and ideas.

Step 3: Local projects and initiatives
One stage on from ensuring that practitioners are working to the same patterns and approaches, is to try to standardize the way that communication is planned to support projects and initiatives.

As many communicators will know, getting some project managers to even consider communication before the closing stages of their project can often be difficult. For many project managers, communication is an activity they can leave to others. When this happens, it tends to be last minute, rushed and half-baked.

We've found that project managers are far more likely to consider planning communication for their project or initiative when they can see that there's a clear and simple process.

For some clients, this has meant developing an online planning tool, which takes project managers through the key stages in a communication plan, and allows them to produce high quality plans that reflect the standards and processes of the organization.

Developing a common language
In today's fast-changing business environment, communicators cannot afford to fly blind. They need planning processes and disciplines to help them avoid overloading the organization and to make sure that communication activities are focused on the right business priorities.

In summary, getting more out of communication in terms of coherence, clarity and credibility requires the coordination of activity at three levels: strategic messages focused on business priorities; messages from communicators working across the organization; and messages coming from managers working on local projects and initiatives.

Without some kind of common planning framework and process in place, it's difficult to manage the different agendas and communication priorities of individuals. Having a common planning process helps ensure a common language, greater consistency and easier comparability of plans.

Planning should aim to reduce:

1. Unexpected and unwelcome communication from various people within the organization.
2. Time-consuming initiatives from the corporate center that haven’t been planned or prepared for locally.
3. An overload of messages with little strategic relevance, that drown out more important key messages.
4. Communication that leaves employees with an inconsistent or incoherent picture of the organization’s business priorities.
5. Poor quality communication coming from managers without acces to planning guidelines and tools.

Identifying the real value of communication

2005-09-26T22:04:00.000-07:00

Identifying the real value of communication

Interview with Bill Quirke

In his latest book, Making the Connections – Using Internal Communication to Turn Strategy into Action, Bill Quirke suggests that organizations will not be able to differentiate themselves from the competition unless they transform their internal communication. His main argument is that, while companies may have got slicker at communication they have not necessarily got better. Organizations are producing huge volumes of "toxic communication"– memos, newsletters, voice mails, e-mails and intranets – that consume time and confuse employees. Quirke suggests that life is moving too fast to rely on this inadequate way of communicating.

Making the Connections examines how businesses can use internal communication to achieve their objectives and what internal communication needs to deliver to achieve best results. What prompted you to write about this?

In recent years, communication has established itself as a critical component of any corporate change initiative. To some degree, we can now claim that the battle about communication's importance is won, but there's a new battle ahead about how it should be done.

Communication is becoming seen as less of a craft industry and more of a profession. It's not just communication that's becoming strategic, functions such as HR have also been called to account to act as a strategic player. So, if communicators are to be seen as more professional, communication departments must demonstrate how they add value to the business.

But there has been a downside to this new professionalism. Communicators have had to reassess their position in order to keep hold of their business. They have had to look at the bigger communication picture. However, this means different things to different people. In some cases communicators have confused volume with value, and focused on extending their armory of communication channels, rather than helping achieve the business strategy.

This is "toxic" media: memos, newsletters, voice mails, e-mails and intranets – all of which consume employees' time and have the potential to confuse. Thinking about this type of messaging overload has raised the questions:

How can communication add value?

How do you make a stronger link between business payoff and communication investment?

How do you link together different components of communication so that it all adds value as a whole rather than individual parts working against each other?

Why have these problems arisen?

It's to do with what we call the aspiration gap. Communicators are inevitably good at getting messages out, but they should really be getting involved in the actual planning earlier. That way they can anticipate and add value by helping the business achieve its strategic ends rather than focusing at the last minute on the communication means. Unfortunately, senior management rarely looks to internal communication as a strategic partner because they typically see the department as being largely executional. If internal communicators do not talk in business terms, they reinforce that perception.

How would you go about defining value in a typical organization?

There are many ways of looking at value. One way is to look at what the business is trying to do – communication is a means to an end, so it's better to start at the end – what's the business trying to achieve and what obstacles are causing it pain? Rather than trying to push communication up the management agenda, it's more valuable to start with what's already at the top of the agenda. Depending on the strategy, points of pain include: low retention of customers; high cost of customer acquisition; high cost base; need for greater internal collaboration; need to stimulate greater cross-selling and customer service; falling market share;

increased cost of administration; and high employee turnover.

One organization, for example, was concerned with how it could drive its share price up. Communicators started by making a clear connection between the share price and communication objectives. They identified a number of ways they could help: they improved existing knowledge management efforts and the way employees captured and shared information. This helped raise understanding of products and services and increased revenue growth.

Internal communication can help solve business problems, but it has to find problems which concern the internal client. Value is in the eye of the beholder. If the internal client does not feel something is a problem, nothing that's done for him or her will look like a solution. For example, internal communication can only valuably increase staff retention if staff turnover is a problem for the business.

How can communicators demonstrate their value if they do not have access to senior management and are unable to actively work on business strategy?

Sometimes organizations don't really know what their strategy is or communication departments are perceived to be little more than publishing outfits. Even then, communicators can still demonstrably add value by running the communication operation more efficiently. This can be achieved by:

Improving the quality of information – clearer messages written in shorter, plain language - Improving the capacity of existing communication channels, for example by using face-to-face meeting time for something more valuable than just information exchange.

Reducing the amount of information going out by limiting the number of producers of messages and limiting their accesss to communication channels - Stopping central production and taking an advisor role to help managers achieve their objectives.

Where communicators can't get involved in the business strategy they can still add value by improving the efficiency of communication processes and reducing costs – something that usually gladdens the finance director's heart.

Most communicators have to combine the roles of strategist and advisor with that of crafting and drafting – good business strategies are useless if they can't be clearly articulated. For example, an organization that we worked with had an absenteeism problem. We recognized that the company was putting out streams of management speak and employees simply didn't understand about the impact absenteeism was having on the business. Simply by improving the clarity of writing, communicators were able to help employees become more engaged in company business and more interested in work. Absenteeism went down.

How do you see the communication function developing?

Many communicators say that the communication function should make itself redundant by enabling and skilling their internal clients and passing the job onto them. However, I disagree, because communication does provide competitive edge, and competitors are always trying to catch up, communicators need to be looking for how they can add value next. While it makes sense to pass on the lessons and skills of the past to others in the business, the communicator's job is to discover the lessons of the future. This means that there will always be a role for communication professionals as long as organizations continue to compete and change.

What are today's biggest challenges?

Ironically, the most common problems tend to be the basic ones, like using management speak, and getting the balance between high tech and high touch communication wrong. For example, we know that face-to-face communication builds a sense of belonging and understanding, and is vital for retaining staff. However, face-to-face communication has taken a back seat for those organizations who want to move into e-business. Some communicators wrongly assume that being an e-business means that you have to shift all your communications onto the Web. Also, corporate intranets are being expected to do too much in terms of business transormation and communication.

How important is company culture to communication efforts?

"Corporate culture" as a phrase is often bandied about by organizations who haven't clearly defined what they want – which inevitably leads to vague and unsuccessful communication programs, often involving laminated cards bearing the organization's new values.

An organization's culture provides the context for internal communication, and determines how employees "decode" the formal messages they receive. However, when they want to change their cultures, organizations need to use the working definition of culture – "how we do things around here" and nail down what exactly they want to change and in what way. Internal communication has a clear role to play. In most organizations, language is the raw material of culture, with the words used carrying basic assumptions. So for example, one organization that wanted to retain their staff continually referred to the problem of "LTO" – a three letter acronym that meant "labor turnover" which depersonalized the problem and reinforced the perception that relationships with employees were uncaring. To change culture you must change the words you use.

With thanks to Bill Quirke, Synopsis.

Practical Negotiation Principles

2005-09-26T06:32:00.000-07:00

Practical Negotiation Principles

By Larraine Segil and Avi Goldstein

The need to resolve issues and craft agreeable solutions, usually through some form of negotiation, is at the core of much organizational communication. Although the situations giving rise to these workplace encounters differ widely, familiarity with basic negotiation skills will improve the chance of securing a fair and workable solution that satisfies all parties.

The word "negotiation" often conjures up images of international treaties, corporate mega-deals or the purchase of a used car. What's often missed is the subtle negotiating we all do on a regular basis. The everyday agreements we reach in cooperation with those around us. The informal influence we exert to make decisions and get things done. And even the deliberate framing of messages in which the goal is to induce some change in attitude or behavior.

Although not as formal or structured as what most people think of as negotiations, these day-to-day encounters could well be considered in the same category.

No matter the context, medium, or formality of the situation, whenever we are attempting to arrange or settle matters by some level of mutual agreement, an application of key negotiation principles will help make our communication more effective and our interactions more productive.

Over the course of more than 20 years of consulting on organizational and individual negotiation capability, we've found the following guidelines for negotiation particularly helpful.

Test your assumptions

Assumptions drive results by shaping our actions and goals. As you engage with your counterpart, consider what assumptions you might be making. For example, key facts that you are taking for granted, conclusions that you're reaching, motivations that you're attributing to your counterpart, and the goals that you're aiming for.

How are these assumptions influencing you and your counterpart's behavior and communication? What might each of you do differently if one or more of your assumptions were proven incorrect?

In action: As you consider and clarify your own assumptions, ask questions to clarify the assumptions that your counterpart is making, testing to see how your assumptions line up with theirs. Jointly explore differences in assumptions, and their reasons and implications. The time taken to clarify and align assumptions will help to avoid the frustration caused by disconnects lingering below the surface of a conversation or negotiation.

Pay attention to process

Negotiators and communicators alike should pay attention to the process they employ to reach their goals. The process - how an agreement is reached - is often as important as what the agreement might be, i.e. how something is communicated is often as critical as what is being communicated.

A good process improves outcomes by enabling constructive engagement, promoting clarity and nurturing relationships. This is especially important when dealing with complex issues; when an ongoing relationship is involved; or when the cooperation of a counterpart is necessary to implement an agreement - all very common conditions.

In action: Explicitly consider the series of activities you will engage in as you go about your negotiation. What do you need to do to prepare? Who needs to be involved at various points? How will you engage with your counterpart? What information will you share? Who needs to be informed of the outcome? Such considerations of "process" don't have to be overly complicated, but they should be methodical and systematic.

Foster two-way communication

Driving results is an uphill battle when communication styles tend toward delivering directive messages. In today's complex organizations, unilateral persuasion is simply not a sustainable option for effective communication. Rather, communication must be informed by a mindset of engagement and modesty - a willingness to explore, learn and problem solve, rather than explain, instruct and pronounce.

In action: Balance advocacy and inquiry as a communicator. Don't just explain your view; ask questions to clarify your counterpart's as well. Doing so will lend interpersonal interactions a constructive spirit of creative, joint problem-solving, helping you to discover and create new value while building closer relationships.

Separate people from problems

Relationships often get tangled up in negotiations and sensitive communications. One of the best ways to preserve and improve relationships while solving difficult problems is to separate one from the other, and to be unconditionally constructive on both.

That doesn't mean that one ought to be soft on the problem at hand. On the contrary, the problem should be attacked directly and firmly, but as an entity distinct from the people involved.

In action: Discuss any salient people issues explicitly, but separately, making sure not to confuse these issues with the substance of the problem at hand. Never try to fix relationship problems with substantive concessions or vice versa. Be uncompromising in your separation of people from the problem.

Explore interests, not positions

Clarify and prioritize interests (needs, concerns, fears - "why"), as opposed to positions (offers, demands, requests - "what" or "how"). Consider what your interests are and what your counterpart's underlying interests might be.

By exploring and discussing interests instead of positions, you'll be able to come up with a wider range of possible options for agreement and, very likely, discover more value than by haggling over opening positions, concession by concession.

In action: Identify which interests you share, which are competing, and which are simply different. If you encounter positions or demands, ask "why?" or other open-ended questions to get to the root of each position. Think of ways to take advantage of shared or complimentary interests and ways to mitigate the effect of competing interests.

Employ objective standards

Objective standards ought to be employed as both swords and shields, to help support reasonable options for agreement and to protect against options that would be unhelpful or even detrimental.

To build your arsenal, brainstorm objective standards and collect supporting data to help choose impartially from among possible options. Make sure you introduce relevant standards during the course of negotiation. Standards produced as validations of an already made arrangement are not very persuasive and in some cases might feel excusatory or coercive. Rather try to introduce criteria that both parties can use to make a choice.

In action: Look for existing standards (for example, precedents, studies, market data, industry practices, etc.) as well as standards you could generate (for example: third-party testimonials). Avoid preparing standards that support only your perspective; consider what objective standards would support your counterpart's perspective as well.

See agreement as the beginning

Consider the boundaries of what you are willing to commit to with an eye to the future. Remember that agreement is just the beginning. Soon after your signature, handshake or verbal OK, you or someone else will be responsible for acting on or adhering to the agreement.

To make sure that any commitments made are clear, realistic and operational, make a list of implementation issues or topics to discuss before commitment, and discuss the procedure by which agreements will be implemented.

If necessary, consider different, gradual levels of commitment (a follow-up meeting, a tentative agreement in principle, etc.).

In action: Be clear about what level of commitment you are seeking from your counterpart. Are you looking for a firm deal or just exploring options? As you near commitment, make sure you consider who's going to be impacted by your agreement and consult or inform (or even negotiate with) them as appropriate.

Set the standard

The role of communication professionals is to be a standard-bearer of the skills of good internal and external messaging. Approach interactions and the construction of messages, both formal and informal, with these principles of negotiation in mind.

This will enable you to carry that standard both for the relationships that you manage every day within your organization, as well as those in which you are representing your organization.

Top tips for Negotiation:

1. Consider and clarify your own assumptions as well as those of your counterparts.
2. Agree on a process to follow to give negotiations a clease sense of purpose and direction.
3. Think about who else needs to be involved in the negotiation process.
4. Make sure that the problem at hand is dealt with separately from people-related issues.
5. Be inquisitive: try find out what it is your counterpart is trying to achieve and why.
6. Be clear about the unspoken interest or outcomes that could influence negotiations.

Workers pressured to let ethics slip

2005-09-26T02:24:00.001-07:00

Workers pressured to let ethics slip

One in four

employees say that they've felt pressure to compromise their organization's ethical standards and one in five has noticed colleagues break the law or the organization's expected standard.

These were the key findings of Ethics at Work: a national survey by Simon Webley, research director of the Institute of Business Ethics and Polly Dryden, former head of corporate responsibility at Pfizer UK.

But other results were more encouraging: around 80 percent of UK full-time workers feel positive about the ethical practices and standards at their workplace; four in five think business is always or frequently conducted honestly; and two thirds think the organization they work for lives up to its stated policies on corporate responsibility.

In the UK, 65 percent of workers say their organization has a written code or standard, compared to 73 percent in the US.

Source: Ethics at Work, published by the

's Institute of Business Ethics

How to prepare for a focus group

2005-09-26T02:24:00.000-07:00

How to prepare for a focus group

By Angela Sinickas

You're considering staging a series of focus groups. Your organization is in the early phase of an environmental assessment that will have it polling employees for their opinion on a variety of performance-critical topics. The focus groups will start the ball rolling. What do you do to prepare?

Focus groups can serve a host of purposes, of course. Like panels filled with consumers asked to give advance feedback on some new product, employee focus groups can be a remarkably effective way to test-market key messages or communication strategies. They can be an effective way for communicators to put their ears to the ground and listen for what employees will say when asked open-ended questions. They can also be effective lead-ins for surveys in the early stages of development. For organizations facing serious performance issues, focus sessions are a useful means to lay the groundwork for asking the right questions in a way calculated to produce the best data.

1. Where to start
Start where any good consultant starts - with the client. Is there a principal figure (or group) in the organization asking for the data? If so, find out as much as you can about what has prompted the request. Educate yourself about the problem lying behind the request. You may find yourself talking with the CEO, or with the director of a division. Schedulean appointment and be clear about its purpose. Before you go, prepare a checklist for yourself detailing the ground you want to cover.

2. What you need to know
Remember that you may not always get the information you need on the first try. Consider the questions to ask again from another perspective. Above all, listen. What are the specific goals the client has in mind? Does the client have a pre-determined view of the outcome? Probe for the trouble spots, if there are any. What are you likely to hear about?

3. Find out who else you should speak to
Who else in the company, or division (or whatever the organizational unit that's to be the focus of the research) will have useful information to help you prepare? It may be a senior manager, or someone who's a long-time veteran of the organization. You may find yourself conducting several one-on-one interviews to help round out the picture. If you're a recent arrival in the company, consider whether anything else in the organization's history might be useful to know. Has the problem or issue occurred before? Has the program been tried earlier?

4. And now for the sessions..
Now that you've developed the background and sounded out the client, think ahead to the session (or sessions, if there's to be a series). Who should be there? How large should the sessions be? How long should they last? Where will they take place: off-site or in-house? Will they be open to volunteers? How many do you want to convene? How important is geographic or organizational coverage? How might the lack of cross-functional - or cross-sectional - diversity affect the outcome? What's a useful sampling? Where is the point of diminishing returns? Who will facilitate the sessions: a member of the communication team, an in-house trained facilitator, or a neutral outsider?

5. Widen your scope
The answers to many of these questions will partly be determined by the scope of the research. The larger the scope of the issues you're polling for, the larger the panel of groups you'll need to convene. At the same time, remember to ask yourself what you intend to do with the results. Will the sessions be taped, videotaped or otherwise recorded? What kind of qualitative data do you expect to get? Make sure to provide for the resources to analyze the results adequately.

6. Tear up the script, but not the agenda.
You'll likely not want to script the sessions. It's important that participants feel free to express themselves without being hemmed in by too much structure. On the other hand, an agenda is essential to make sure you cover the points you need to explore before thanking the group for coming. What are the goals of you and your client? What do you need to ask the group to make sure your survey is as effective as possible? Again, don't forget to listen well, and ask helpful follow-up questions.

Measurement tip
Focus groups provide a valuable opportunity for participants to talk to you. As they speak, be sure to listen to the language they use, and the way in which they respond to the language in the questions you ask. Think ahead to your survey questions. Are participants using words or terms that you can incorporate into a later survey and that would be more meaningful to them?

This article was taken from Strategic Communication Management.

Five steps to distinguishing corporate responsibility strategy from corporate spin

2005-09-26T01:47:00.000-07:00

5 steps to distinguishing corporate responsibility strategy from corporate spin

Gary Niekerk, operations manager for corporate responsibility at Intel Corporation, lists five ways to ensure your CR communication is credible:

1. Match what you say to what you do
Companies get so focused on responding to socially responsible investment (SRI) surveys and stakeholder requests, that they spend more energy on adjusting their CR report or their corporate policies, than they do implementing the programs and cultural initiatives that will drive true change in the organization. Use the next four steps as a checklist to bridge any say/do gap.

2. When in doubt, use data
When your message is in doubt, use data to back it up. People associate different types of words with different things - your message may be diluted or misunderstood without you ever realizing why. So use figures and statistics to prove your point and make sure your message gets across.

3. Discuss achievements with humility
The greater success an enterprise achieves, the greater the enthusiasm and pride in the organization. But the greater the pride, the more difficult it is to communicate and respond to all stakeholders. The organization's ego may be the greatest barrier to CR communication. So while it may go against PR strategy, the less positive your reputation, the more humble and self-effacing you should be.

4. Be strategic in selecting partners
Get an honest assessment of your performance by using external resources. Develop strategic relationships with SRI firms and NGOs.

5. Avoid the "greenwash" label
Greenwash is disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image. Avoid discrepancies between your overall performance and your rhetoric. When there is controversy between expert opinions, seek the middle ground and acknowledge prior mistakes and current challenges.

Source: The above information is taken from an article in the latest issue of The Business Communicator.

Reinforcing established company values

2005-09-26T01:44:00.000-07:00

Reinforcing established company values

the following question was recently posted to The Communicators' Network:

Q: How do you drive home corporate values that are already in place?
A: When I joined the company, most people were aware of the values, even if they didn't always model them. My colleagues in HR and I switched to a subtler approach aimed at integrating the values into the organization's processes, policies etc.

This included:
1. a beefed-up values intranet page that promotes a dedicated values seminar.
2. Values booklets have been edited down and reproduced. Posters and other tools are available via the intranet, on request, and in induction kits.
3. Values have been incorporated into everyone's performance plans, including executives.
4. Values have been included in relevant HR policies.

In hindsight, I'd say that developing behaviors that explain the values probably made them more "real." I also think using the values to "sponsor" events and activities is a good way of getting the message across without ramming it down people's throats.

Inclusion in performance plans is essential - and it's amazing, but we still have a reasonably steady demand for values booklets - mainly from staff responsible for induction.

Tania Angelini, Manager of internal communications, Department of Human Services, Australia

ALLTEL Sells Text Messaging

2005-09-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

ALLTEL Sells Text Messaging

ALLTEL, a communications provider in Little Rock, Ark., wanted to improve its sales in text messaging. So the company developed a training program that taught customer service representatives how to transition a customer from resolving his or her problem to selling him or her a text-messaging package. Sales in the month following the training program increased by 30 percent.

ALLTEL ranked #77 in the 2005 Training Top 100, Training magazine's annual ranking of organizations that excel at training and development.

Overweight Employees and Insurance Premiums

2005-09-21T12:29:00.000-07:00

From the 'Are You Serious?' Department: Overweight Employees and Insurance Premiums

Some companies are actually starting to concern themselves with their overweight employees' eating habits. Since employees who are overweight theoretically have more health problems, they cost companies more in health insurance premiums. So it makes sense, according to this logic, to encourage heavier employees to trim down a smidge.

It may sound nutty, but articles in USA TODAY, The Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune have discussed this topic in recent months, and apparently companies are starting to try it out. All of which means that you might find yourself stuck with designing or even delivering training on healthier lifestyles (read: losing weight). Tom Gilliam, who has written and self-published a book on the topic (Move It. Lose It. Live Healthy, T. Gilliam and Associates LLC, 2005), has a few helpful suggestions.

• Be honest with people about the impact of their excess weight.
Not a bad idea, but it might be helpful to research that impact and make sure you're not just talking a company line. Nobody will want to hear the news you're bringing, and if you can't show data to prove it's true, you'll probably end up looking like a company shill.
• Teach employees the basics of weight loss.
• Commit to helping them lose weight.
Gilliam suggests structured programs. (Coincidentally, he has his own program, called "Move It. Lose It. Live Healthy.") And programs such as Weight Watchers work with a lot of companies and there's usually a nearby weigh-in site.
• Offer incentives.
"People like working toward a concrete reward," says Gilliam. "Be creative. Make it fun." Gilliam also suggests that you should also monitor and reward those who have normal BMIs (body-mass indexes) and maintain healthy weights year after year. Yikes.
• Get your employees excited about good nutrition.
Good luck with this one. If you have to do this, it does make sense to make the workplace as friendly as possible to healthy eating. But you may have a riot on your hands if you try his suggestion about vending machines: "Don't forget to remove all 'junk food' from the premises." He adds, "It's hard to stay on track when vending machines packed with grease and sugar and trans-fatty acids beckon with their sinister glow."

• Foster and encourage exercise groups.
Learning is social, and so is sticking to a routine.
• Link weight loss to larger family issues.
Gilliam suggests that you can "use guilt to motivate people by suggesting that their kids are learning bad eating habits by watching them." All we can say is: Proceed with plenty of caution. It's a sensitive enough topic without bringing guilt into the mix.

Sprint Teaches for Retention

2005-09-16T04:25:00.000-07:00

Sprint Teaches for Retention

When the company realized that turnover in its customer service organization was significant, Sprint started a program called Talentkeepers that taught its leaders practices for better retention. The program reduced turnover in some areas by 40 percent in 2003, and resulted in improved customer satisfaction scores and higher one-call resolution rates.

Sprint ranked #4 in the 2005 Training Top 100, Training magazine's annual ranking of organizations that excel at training and development. The Training Top 100 is determined by assessing a range of qualitative and quantitative data, including financial investment in employee development and how closely training efforts are linked to business goals.

The four keys to coaching success

2005-09-12T22:23:00.000-07:00

The four keys to coaching success

John Blakey, director of coaching at LogicaCMG, describes the four critical success factors when coaching was introduced across LogicaCMG, a 21,000-person organization.

1. Create and maintain CEO sponsorship. It's one thing to have an initial conversation with the CEO when coaching is considered innovative and cutting edge. It's another to repeat those conversations when budgets are being reviewed, the initial novelty has gone and the first challenges appear. Sponsorship is like trust; it's hard to win and easily lost. In creating a
coaching environment, maintaining CEO sponsorship involves measuring results and reviewing them on a regular basis. It also involves constant innovation to ensure the initiative keeps track with the way the business is evolving.

2. Focus on the "marzipan layer." The idea of trying to create a coaching culture from scratch in a 21,000-person organization is a daunting prospect. Don't try it. These concepts spread by osmosis, not revolution. Focus on people who are in the best position to influence the wider group. In theory, you'd guess this would be the board of the organization, but this group
often don't have the time to effectively sponsor this type of initiative. As an alternative, consider the "marzipan layer" - the group of young and ambitious leaders who fill the layer below the board. These leaders are often more enthusiastic about introducing new ideas to the organization and have greater insight into the ambitions of people lower down in the company.

3. Ensure project management discipline. LogicaCMG is steeped in over 30 years of project management discipline. This was a big advantage when building a coaching environment. The required skills include rigorous planning and estimating, active steering groups, regular reporting and communication and celebrating success. Within the coaching team there needs
to be sufficient project management skills and aptitude to avoid the inevitable risks these types of programs involve.

4. Create accredited internal coaches. When LogicaCMG initially embarked upon its coaching initiatives we had no option but to involve external coaches. However, our objective was to build an accredited internal team of coaches who could be used alongside external coaches. This wasn't just a cost issue - the benefit of the internal coaching component is that these people can act as change agents within the company in a way that just isn't possible for an external individual. Hence, the final course in our coaching skills training program takes nine months to complete and leads towards accreditation with the International Coach Federation.

Source: Strategic HR Review Vol. 4, Issue 5, July/August 2005

Introducing a new measurement approach at BP

2005-09-09T00:20:00.000-07:00

Introducing a new measurement approach at BP

In 2004, the communication team in BP's Lubricants business set out to establish a more rigorous performance management model. Their goal: to produce reliable tracking information to measure the impact of business-crucial communication. The first step was identifying key performance indicators (KPI) to measure the "effects" of communication. Next, they designed a survey to produce answers that feed directly into and inform these KPIs.

The project, which was coordinated by Simon Elliott, communication manager at BP Lubricants and Helen Coley-Smith, an independent consultant, resulted in a pioneering approach currently being adopted by the rest of the business. Based on BP's key success factors, here's some suggestions for practitioners working to develop a measurement strategy for their organization:

Get the buy in and interest of leadership and key stakeholders early in the process, and enlist their support during implementation.
In working out what to measure, link communication strategy to business strategy, and make linkages with business performance.
At the outset ensure you and your stakeholders have absolute clarity on why and what you are measuring. Do this before you think about how to measure.
Develop a tailored research solution. Combine expertise in communication and engagement with expertise in research techniques.
Position the survey carefully - make sure everyone knows its focus, how it differs from or complements other surveys and why it's a valuable use of their time.
Enlist the support of external experts to help with both the thinking around measurement strategy and with running the fieldwork.
Make sure local communicators fully understand and support the survey.
Make sure you maintain focus throughout and don't get derailed by requests to include issues or questions not related to your objectives.
Be inclusive. Translate the survey into local languages to increase response rates.
Present the results in a way that has impact - avoid death by PowerPoint.

Source: This extract is from a case study in the latest issue of Strategic Communication Management called "Building a new performance management model at BP."

Wyeth Teaches ... Ad Management?

2005-09-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

Wyeth Teaches ... Ad Management?

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, based in Collegeville, Pa., solved a company problem with advertising using the right training. Upon realizing that its spending with advertising agencies was way over budget, the company created a program called Ad Agency Management. The program, delivered to product management team members, taught them the principles of managing an ad agency so that they would be able to work more effectively and prudently with other ad agencies. As of 2004, the program had saved Wyeth $77 million.

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals ranked #12 in the 2005 Training Top 100, Training magazine's annual ranking of organizations that excel at training and development. The Training Top 100 is determined by assessing a range of qualitative and quantitative data, including financial investment in employee development and how closely training efforts are linked to business goals.

Motivate employees by getting out of their way

2005-09-07T08:43:00.000-07:00

Motivate employees by getting out of their way

A new study of 3.5 million employees by attitude research company, Sirota Survey Intelligence has revealed that workers are more productive when their bosses keep out of their way.

Over three-quarters of employees questioned at companies around the world revealed that the obstacles their management throw at them, such as excessive bureaucracy, blame-placing, lack of input into and delays in decision making, interfere with their ability to get their work done quickly and efficiently. Key obstacles include:

Excessive bureaucracy – 62%
More attention to placing blame than solving problems – 59%
Inconsistent management decisions – 57%
Wasted time and effort – 56%
Lack of input into decision making – 56%
Delays in making decisions – 51%

Dr David Sirota, chairman emeritus of Sirota Survey Intelligence, comments: “People come to work, to work. Unfortunately, they often find conditions that block high performance, such as excessive bureaucracy burying them in paperwork and slowing decision making to a crawl. Or, they work in an atmosphere where management is consumed with finger-pointing, rather than cooperative problem-solving. Management doesn’t have to motivate employees
to perform – it has to help employees perform, which in many cases means getting out of the way.”

source

TOP TIPS: Developing "new model" leaders

2005-09-07T08:40:00.000-07:00

TOP TIPS: Developing "new model" leaders

Business executives are traditionally well-schooled in using tools to meet financial objectives, but they need additional strategies and more information to seek outcomes that more fully take social and environmental impacts into account. What does this mean for leadership development professionals? How can you develop these "new model" leaders?

1. Change the curriculum. New topics could include: understanding diverse stakeholder perspectives, considering what “sustainable development” means for today’s managers, surveying global trends and assessing their impact on management decisions, considering the appropriate role and responsibilities of corporations in an evolving global economy and exploring ways to build partnerships across sectors.

2. It's a journey of discovery. A theme that cuts across all the above topics – and dozens of others that might be added to the list – is that they are not so much about mastery as they are about discovery. Leadership that contributes to a sustainable society is much more about asking questions than it is about finding answers. It’s about honoring the importance of inquiry.

3. Are you asking the right questions? Help executives value inquiry by designing educational experiences that include questions such as:
- What is the purpose of our enterprise?
- Is it possible to articulate this purpose in a way that engages the passions of employees?
- How do we measure success?
- What is it that we do as a business when we are at our best that allows us to say that our life has meaning?

4. Getting away from it all. Giving leaders an opportunity for retreat and reflection should be a more prominent component of leadership development initiatives. Retreat is seen as a critical counterpoint to the information overload and speed imperative that govern daily corporate life. It is a source of energy and strength. The common thread of retreat and reflection initiatives should be to move away from the usual daily routines in order to get a different view.

5. Make learning an experience. Experiential learning opportunities for executives – including role-playing, peer exchanges, listening tours and so on – are sources of remarkable breakthroughs in terms of individuals uncovering their own values and understanding others’ points of view. This can mean spending time in their community, with customers or with representatives from different disciplines or functions within a firm. It can also mean discussions across generations or hierarchical layers in a
corporation.

Source: "Developing leaders for a sustainable society" by Nancy McGaw, Strategic HR Review Vol. 4, Issue 6, Sept/Oct 2005

5 Myths About Changing Behavior

2005-09-01T01:50:00.000-07:00

5 Myths About Changing Behavior
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
source

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Myth 1: Crisis is a powerful impetus for change
~~~~~~~
Reality: Ninety percent of patients who've had coronary bypasses don't sustain changes in the unhealthy lifestyles that worsen their severe heart disease and greatly threaten their lives.

~~~~~~~
Myth 2: Change is motivated by fear
~~~~~~~
Reality: It's too easy for people to go into denial of the bad things that might happen to them. Compelling, positive visions of the future are a much stronger inspiration for change.

~~~~~~~
Myth3: The facts will set us free
~~~~~~~
Reality: Our thinking is guided by narratives, not facts. When a fact doesn't fit our conceptual "frames" -- the metaphors we use to make sense of the world -- we reject it. Also, change is inspired best by emotional appeals rather than factual statements.

~~~~~~~
Myth 4: Small, gradual changes are always easier to make and sustain
~~~~~~~
Reality: Radical, sweeping changes are often easier because they quickly yield benefits.

~~~~~~~
Myth 5: We can't change because our brains become "hardwired" early in life
~~~~~~~
Reality: Our brains have extraordinary "plasticity," meaning that we can continue learning complex new things throughout our lives -- assuming we remain truly active and engaged.

Sandia Retrains for Recruitment

2005-08-31T15:55:00.000-07:00

Sandia Retrains for Recruitment

Albuquerque, N.M.-based Sandia National Laboratories realized that it was having trouble recruiting enough computer scientists. To solve the problem, the U.S. Department of Energy lab began relocating certain employees to a retraining organization for training in IT. By the end of the relocation program, Sandia had developed 52 IT professionals.

Managers Need Strategic Capabilities

2005-08-31T15:51:00.000-07:00

Managers Need Strategic Capabilities

According to the authors of Becoming a Strategic Leader (Jossey-Bass), a just-released book on strategic leadership, the typical manager often has difficulty leading in ways that contribute to the organization's long-range success.

The authors, Rich Hughes and Kate Beatty, base their conclusions on eight years of work with nearly a thousand executives and leaders who participated in the Center for Creative Leadership's Developing the Strategic Leader training program. Hughes and Beatty are both employees of the center, a nonprofit leadership training organization in Greensboro, N.C.

During their work in the Developing the Strategic Leader program, both observed that many managers do not lead teams with strategic concerns in mind. Instead, they focus primarily on what must be accomplished daily.

Hughes and Beatty suggest that the skills needed for more strategic leadership can be developed by any employee, not just managers, and that a company will be better for it. "Strategic leaders should come from all functions and work at all levels in an organization," says Hughes. "It's not just the job of top executives.

All employees can develop a strategic outlook and should accept the responsibility of strategic leadership. The process of creating and sustaining a competitive business advantage is too complex for any one person “even the CEO” to develop and carry out."

Communication within senior teams must improve

2005-08-24T02:50:00.000-07:00

Communication within senior teams must improve

Communicators could have a role to play in helping to improve communication and teamwork within executive teams. According to a new research report from coaching and leadership company Optima, entitled From Vision to Results: The Role of the CEO, both CEOs and HR directors agree that poor communication skills are the single biggest obstacle to teamwork.

The research, conducted between March and May 2005, canvassed the views of CEOs and HR directors drawn from the UK FTSE 350 (the Financial Times Stock Exchange Index – a share index of the largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange).

Fifty-two percent of HR directors and 48 percent of CEOs listed poor communication skills as the main obstacle to teamwork, followed by competing objectives, personality clashes and a competitive environment.CEOs are keen to improve the situation as – according to the same report – they value the greater level of innovation that results from teamwork and recognize that individuals develop their skills and perform their jobs better through teamwork.

Source: From Vision to Results: The Role of the CEO, published by The Optima Group

Is there a "top three" methods of communication?

2005-08-24T02:44:00.000-07:00

Is there a "top three" methods of communication?

The following question was recently posted to The Communicators' Network:

Q: I'm currently reviewing my company's internal communication strategy, processes and tools, prior to presenting it to our board. I'd be interested to find out what other practitioners consider their top three most effective internal communication methods?

A: After 10 years in internal communication, I've come to the conclusion that there's no such thing as "best practice." No right or wrong way – only what works best for your particular business at a particular point in time.

I know this because working for a global organization (we have about 90,000 employees and do business in 180 markets), I've learned that what works in one part of the business can't always be successfully exported. Even the Holy Grail of face-to-face comms is only effective under certain conditions.

What will work will depend – among other things – on your current business model (e.g., centralized vs. decentralized); your culture (e.g., command and control vs. collaboration/networking); your audience (the information and communication needs and preferences of your employees according to their role/grade/location etc.); and the nature of the messages you are communicating (e.g., strategic vs. support). When presenting to the board start with the business problem not with the comms solution or delivery mechanisms. What are your specific business challenges, for example, morale; retention; productivity; quality; etc.? And which have comms solutions that you can implement, for example, strategic message alignment; employee engagement; middle-management advocacy; comms competency development; cross-functional working groups; etc.?

This may provide direction in terms of the tools and processes you may need to develop.

source

Five Steps to Strategy Planning

2005-08-23T01:46:00.000-07:00

Five steps to strategy planning

A strategic approach to managing communication requires a simple but clear plan. This plan should link the output of the communication function to the goals and objectives of the organization. Patricia Bayerlein, a consultant at Gagen MacDonald, identifies five key steps to the planning process.

1. Prepare the planning team
Before developing a strategic communication plan, gauge the readiness and commitment of leaders within the function. Be inclusive and collaborative to create a sense of shared ownership of the planning process. Once those who can commit the time and energy are in place, you can begin developing a work plan or an overarching "blueprint." This should focus on specific issues or business problems the communication function needs to address; clarify roles and responsibilities; identify the additional team members and key stakeholders; and align the planning timeline with the company's overall planning process. Finally, develop a detailed work plan and timeline against which to measure progress.

2. Articulate guiding principles
Once the work plan is in place, the core team should clearly articulate the guiding principles (vision, mission and values) for the communication function, and connect those back to the company goals. Planning teams that overlook this step fail to develop a shared, coherent idea of mission and purpose. Asking questions such as, "Why does this organization exist, what is its purpose, and what is our aspiration for the future?" will help begin a dialogue around your guiding principles.

3. Assess the current situation
Assess the current situation within the company and the communication function to clarify which communication strategies will have the most impact. For example, start with an analysis of the gaps between how the organization is currently perceived and how it wants to be perceived. Or examine differences between the information people want and the information that the organization supplies.

You need to be aware of resources and keep an eye on the future environment so that you can respond to changes. A situation assessment is critical to strategic thinking and management in that it outlines the organization's strengths, weaknesses and performance. This information highlights critical issues that the company faces and the plan must address.

4. Develop a strategic framework
Now it's time to figure out how to address the key business and communication issues. The planning team should draw on a variety of techniques to generate and test goals, objectives and strategies. Typically this would include interviews, group discussion and formal decision-making techniques, including facilitated sessions with communicators representing different operational areas. The strategies should encompass the broad approach needed to achieve goals (general results) and objectives (specific results).

This step can take considerable time as discussions often require additional information or a re-evaluation of conclusions reached during the original analysis. In addition, the team should outline the research and measurement approach it will take. You should now have a framework to outline strategic direction and be ready to complete the written plan.

5. Complete the plan
Take the guiding principles, situation assessment and strategic framework and prepare the written plan. Check in with key decision-makers to address any important questions they may have about the priorities and direction in which the communication plan and the function is headed. Address any issues as they arise to prevent future conflict that may hamper the execution of the plan. The output of this step is your formal written plan.

Source: This is an edited extract from "Five steps to strategy planning," an article appearing in the latest issue of Strategic Communication Management

Engaging your board of directors without getting fired

2005-08-18T15:36:00.000-07:00

Engaging your board of directors without getting fired

Has your board become bored with CR’s evangelical approach to business and is now seeking to downgrade your company’s involvement? So how do you keep your boss engaged and keep yourself from getting fired in the process?

Here are five things to know before entering the boardroom to help you make a winning argument:

1. Remember the handcuffs:
In 2006 in the UK, the Operating and Financial Review will make it mandatory for executive boards to report future expectations of their business. So board members will be liable for the
accuracy and validity of their financial and non-financial information. If your boss still isn’t engaged, show him a picture of Jeffrey Skilling, ex-CEO of Enron, in handcuffs.

2. Directors Wives Syndrome (DWS):
While many professionals put great support into CR activities, don’t forget the irrational and emotional side. Many charities supported by your organization have the directors’ wives
sitting on their boards.

3. Workers unite:
So much about monitoring and measuring CR activities is about negative issues. Don’t pollute, use unsustainable sources or act unethically are all common mantras. This puts CR practitioners in an uneasy position of being moral arbiters for business. Gain workforce support by placing more emphasis on the good. An engaged and productive workforce can be the last line of defence to maintain your ongoing CR activities.

4. Forget the integrity:
Sometimes it’s more prudent to stay on the right side of key decision-makers in the short term in order to influence long-term gain. Too much integrity can be a hindrance in a cut-throat
business environment. You’re better off in the business making a difference than out of the business with your integrity in tact. Introduce your director to the most influential person you know, make your CEO look good, get positive press coverage and see the difference it can make.

5. Work on mutual advantage:
Highlight the tangible benefit of your CR activities to the board. Tony Hayward at BP recently did in regard to BP’s ongoing CR activities in Russia. The emphasis was on finding a better balance in the benefits of BP’s sustainable operations. If you prove CR improves business efficiency, saves money, provides a legitimate license to operate and impacts the bottom line, there’s no reason to scale it back.

Adapted from “The apprentice: ways to engage your board in CR and not get fired” in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

Selecting KPIs at Thames Water

2005-08-18T15:28:00.000-07:00

Selecting KPIs at Thames Water

Although Thames Water, the UK’s largest water provider, has always collected and reported on environmental targets, two years ago senior managers created more strategic key performance indicators (KPIs) for all aspects of corporate responsibility.

During a brainstorming session, senior managers from across the business ended up with several potential indicators in three areas – economic, social and environmental (and a general section if the indicator didn’t fit neatly into one of those categories, but which dealt mainly with governance).

The group then whittled the list to 50, and selected 15 of these that would be “key performance indicators.” The reason for selecting KPIs was to make the job of focusing the rest of the business on CR targets easier. “We decided to identify the key ones to focus on,” says Ed Mitchell, Thames Water’s director of corporate responsibility.

For example, regarding climate change, they selected general indicators like energy consumption, renewable energy generation, fuel for transport and business miles travelled, but decided the KPI for climate change would be one that summed the others up – “global warming potential.” Under governance, the indicators included compliance with a range of environmental certifications and the percentage completed of each year’s commitments on the environmental commitment program (an internal management system).

The KPI they picked was “regulatory violations.” “Regulatory violations are the hard performance measure, so that became the KPI,” Mitchell says.

Adapted from “Selecting key performance indicators at Thames Water” in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

Good Recruiting Equals Shareholder Value

2005-08-17T20:07:00.000-07:00

According to the Human Capital Index (HCI) study, done by Washington, D.C.-based human capital management firm Watson Wyatt, successful recruiting is a strong indicator of higher shareholder value. The study found that companies that fill positions within two weeks provided a total return to shareholders of 59 percent between 2002 and 2004. On the other hand, companies that required at least seven weeks to fill positions provided an 11 percent return during the same period.

Among the survey’s findings was that the firms with the best shareholder returns fill about half of non-entry-level positions internally, and have moderate annual turnover rates of about 15 percent.

The HCI is a survey of human resource practices that began in 1999. The 2005 survey investigated 147 large North American companies with a track record of at least three years of total returns to shareholders, 1,000 or more employees, and a minimum of $100 million in revenues or market value.

What makes your employees tick?

2005-08-08T04:59:00.000-07:00

Demographics - the means of distinguishing and describing the characteristics of a population - have long been applied to external communication. But only recently have they been used to shape employee communication. But why is this information important? Where can you find it within the organization? And how should you use it?

For several years employee communication consultancy Davis & Co. has been studying demographic trends. CEO Alison Davis offers an example of how demographics can shape attitudes - in this case, about communication. "People in their mid-40s or older grew up in an era before computers. They may use technology, but it doesn't necessarily come naturally to them.

The implication is that if a significant portion of your organization's workers are 40 or above, it's wise not to rely solely on electronic communication." According to Davis, communicators' knowledge should go beyond such commonalities as how many people work for the company. They should know: how many locations there are; how many employees have been with the company more than 20 years; and how many speak English. "These micro-demographics should inform how we communicate (for example, print vs. electronic vs. face to face) as well as what we communicate."

Where to find the information
The best source for demographic information within your organization is the HR or payroll department. The more sophisticated the database managed by HR, the more closely you can analyze demographics data. Unfortunately, many organizations don't centralize all their HR systems, which may require you to hunt down information.
While it's best to obtain data that's as accurate as possible, don't feel that you have to obsess over every detail. The point is to begin to paint a picture of the people in your organization, so you can develop better strategies for reaching them.

"How to apply demographics
Developing messages that resonate is never easy, but it's helpful to think about messages in the context of demographics. For example, a communicator at one pharmaceutical company gathered data that 45 percent of scientists in the R&D organization speak English as their second language. She used this to make her case for creating messages that are more straight forward and use less jargon.Another communicator went further and based on demographics such as education and job category determined that 60 percent of employees in his organization read at a 7th grade level. He convinced senior management to allow him to simplify messages - no more quasi-academic language.

Source: The above information is taken from an article in the latest issue of Strategic Communication Management, "Applying employee demographics."

Using blogs to discuss sensitive issues

2005-08-08T04:51:00.000-07:00

Using blogs to discuss sensitive issues

The following question was recently posted to The Communicators' Network:

Q: My company is considering installing a blog on our intranet for the purpose of open discussions regarding the results of our recent satisfaction survey. How can you monitor or manage these discussions?

A: For what you're trying to accomplish, I don't think a blog is what you need. They're mostly one-way channels authored by a single person. For this to work in your case, you would have to have a senior leader be the blog author, pose questions about the survey results and then sit back and see what comments to the postings are. Your challenge would be that, for the blog to have any credibility, you would have to post all comments regardless of their content or tone.If you're looking to stimulate dialogue around the survey results, I'd suggest you instead convene some face-to-face sessions that focus groups of employees on particular aspects of the survey results you're trying to better understand.

Christopher Hannegan - EDELMAN

Encouraging employees to live the brand

2005-08-07T22:39:00.000-07:00

Jo Birriel, president of the Brand Inside consultancy, lists the five "As" or acts of leadership that ensure employee engagement with your brand:

1. Aspiration
Successful branding begins with recognizing the two distinct consumers that impact your brand: the internal (employees) and the external (customers). Your aspiration represents the promise you make to both of them every time they experience/deliver your product or service.

2. Articulation
Communicate in a way that truly inspires, frequently through multiple mediums. Real communication is required, which by definition is two-way and demands as much listening as speaking. It can take the form of employee meetings, town hall gatherings, messages boards and e-mail. It requires visibility and involvement by the leadership team and cannot be completely delegated to HR or communication.

3. Alignment
This is where your approach to internal branding begins to change your organization. It means everything when the organization works together and supports one ultimate outcome - a satisfied customer who returns frequently. This step is often the hardest because it can require tough decisions about significant changes.

4. Adaptation
It's about managing expectations. It's where difficult personnel decisions get made to ensure you have the right people in the right jobs and where you hold people accountable. It's where consumer-focused metrics are introduced and where employees begin to see what changes are required to succeed in the marketplace.

5. Affirmation
This is how people are recognized and rewarded. It's also everything you do to be crystal clear about what's required from your employees to deliver your promise to consumers. It's more than a catchy phrase but a way of leading that recognizes all the employee touch points for influencing consumer experience.

Source: The above article appears in the latest issue of The Business Communicator.

VITAL STATISTICS: Recruitment and Retain..

2005-08-04T07:42:00.000-07:00

Recruitment and retention are top priorities for senior

Attracting and retaining skilled staff ranks highest on executive agendas for 2005, according to an annual global study by Accenture. Interviews with 425 senior executives at leading organizations in North America, Europe and Asia found that workforce-improvement issues dominated the top priorities, comprising four of the 10 most-selected concerns, including the top two. For instance, the greatest number of respondents, 35 percent, selected "attracting and retaining skilled staff," followed by 33 percent who selected "changing organizational cultural and employee attitudes."

"The most powerful theme emerging in this year's study is a strong and consistent focus on people," says Peter Cheese, global managing partner of Accenture's Human Performance practice. "Even though the business conversations have centered on global competition and the need for execution, business leaders are increasingly aware that nothing happens unless people-talent is engaged in the right way."

The study revealed that senior executives' top 10 business issues are:
1. Attracting and retaining skilled staff (35%)
2. Changing organizational culture & employee attitudes (33%)
3. Acquiring new customers (32%)
4. New processes and products to stay ahead of the competition (29%)
5. Increasing customer loyalty & retention (29%)
6. Managing risk (29%)
7. Improving workforce performance (28%)
8. Increasing shareholder value (27%)
8. Using IT to reduce costs & create value (27%)
10. Being flexible & adaptable to rapidly changing market conditions (26%)
10. Developing employees into capable leaders (26%)

Source

Office Conflict Resolution

2005-08-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

from Melissa C. Stöppler, M.D.,
Your Guide to Stress Management.Communication Tips for a Healthy Workplace

Misunderstandings and communication problems remain one of the most common sources of workplace strife. While conflict is inevitable, it need not ruin your workday or cause unbearable stress. Try these conflict resolution tips to make your work environment a less stressful, more productive place.

1. Be specific in formulating your complaints. "I´m never invited to meetings" is not as effective as "I wish I had been invited to last Thursday´s marketing meeting."

2. Resist the temptation to involve yourself in conflicts that do not directly involve you or your resposibilities. Even if someone has clearly been wronged, allow him or her to resolve the situation as he/she chooses.

3. Try to depersonalize conflicts. Instead of a "me versus you" mentality, visualize an "us versus the problem" scenario. This is not only a more professional attitude, but it will also improve productivity and is in the best interests of the company.

4. In a dispute or discussion where conflicts arise, try an exercise in listening. Before explaining your own position, try to paraphrase and condense what the other is saying into one or two sentences. Start with, "so you´re saying that..." and see how much you really understand about your rival´s position. You may find that you´re onthe same wavelength but having problems communicating your ideas.

5. Don´t always involve your superiors in conflict resolution.You´ll quickly make the impression that you are unable to resolve the smallest difficulties.

6. If an extended discussion is necessary, agree first on a time and place to talk. Confronting a coworker who´s with a client or working on a deadline is unfair and unprofessional. Pick a time when you´re both free to concentrate on the problem and its resolution.

7. Take it outside - of the group of inquisitive coworkers if they´re not involved in the problem. Don´t try to hold negotiations when the office gossip can hear every word.

8. Limit your complaints to those directly involved in the workplace conflict. Character assassination is unwarranted. Remember, you need to preserve a working relationship rather than a personal one, and your opinion of a coworker´s character is generally irrelevant. "He missed last week´s deadline" is OK; "he´s a total idiot" is not.

9. Know when conflict isn´t just conflict. If conflict arises out of sexual, racial, or ethnic issues, or inappropriate behavior, that´s not conflict, it´s harassment. Take appropriate action and discuss the problem with your supervisor or human resources department.

10. Consider a mediator if the problem gets out of control, or if the issue is too emotional to resolve in a mutual discussion. At this step, your supervisor should be involved. You can consider using a neutral third party mediator within your own company or hiring a professional counselor.

Change management vital to future success

2005-08-01T02:19:00.000-07:00

Change management vital to future success

Flexibility and speed will mark out the best organizations of 2010. That’s the conclusion of research from the UK’s Economist Intelligence Unit, based on a global survey of over 4,000 senior executives from 23 countries.

In the survey, 33 percent of respondents identified swift adaptability to change as the greatest management challenge for creating long-term value, and a further 18 percent cited speed of innovation.

Technology will be at the core of efforts to acquire these attributes: 41 percent of respondents expect technology innovation to exert the heaviest influence on business models in 2005-2010. The renewed business enthusiasm for technology is also reflected in the fact that 87 percent of executives said it would be critical to their ability to adapt business models and implement strategy.

"The pace of change in the next few years will be relentless," says to Daniel Franklin, editorial director of the Economist Intelligence Unit. "The companies that best understand the dynamics of this change and adapt fastest to the emerging business landscape will be the likeliest to prosper."

Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit.

Poor Engagement - what we should do ?

2005-07-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

In the 1980s, when Japanese-made cars were making major inroads in the American car market and Toyota's management practices became famous, Americans formed an image of Japan as the working (if not the economic) powerhouse of the world. We saw that the Japanese worked long hours in long careers for corporations that guaranteed their employment; some even taking their work so seriously they committed suicide over it.

But a new Gallup poll has a different take on all that. According to The Gallup Organization's most recent Employee Engagement Index survey of Japan's workforce, only 9 percent of Japanese employees are "engaged," or psychologically committed to their jobs and their employers, at work. Sixty-seven percent just pick up a paycheck and aren't particularly enthusiastic about their jobs. And another 24 percent are actively disengaged; they don't care about their jobs and they're vocally unhappy with the company. Researchers at Gallup estimate that employees like these cost Japan the equivalent of $232 billion each year.

The scenario is similar in other Asian countries in Thailand, for example, only 12 percent of employees are engaged. But the western half of the hemisphere faces similar problems. The numbers are a little better in the United States, with 29 percent of employees describing themselves as engaged but that means almost three-quarters of the workforce is either disengaged or actively disengaged. The problem seems universal. Is there something about work in general that just isn't working for people?

The answer, or part of it, may lie in the nature of work and what people get out of it. Gallup recently interviewed Richard Florida, Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and a Gallup senior scientist. Florida's work has focused in recent years on creativity at work. He is the author of The Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class, books about what he calls the "creative class," the sector of employees who use their creative powers to create wealth in the economy. In the interview he suggests that what many employees need is an opportunity to exercise their creativity and intelligence at work and that's just what many of them don't have.

"We have a dilemma in the United States," Florida says. "Thirty percent of us, and in some other advanced industrial countries, maybe 40 percent of us, get to do creative work, are paid well, and can express at least some part of our identity in our work and enact ourselves through work. But there's 60 percent or 70 percent who do not.

"My hope," he continues, "is that 20 or 30 or 40 years out, we will have reached the stage of development where we essentially 'creatify' more and more manufacturing work and more and more of the service work."

Read the entire interview at Gallup. Read the rest of the article on Japan's engagement crisis.

Help your CEO create a compelling vision

2005-07-24T18:46:00.000-07:00

When it comes to major change and the future direction of the organization, the CEO should lead the way by communicating a clear and compelling vision.

In an article taken from the latest issue of The Business Communicator, Paul Sanchez, practice leader, and Brendan McCann, senior consultant at Mercer Communication Consulting in the UK, share advice to help CEOs talk about goals, change, values or strategy.

Communicating goals
Platitudes about the "employee as the company's most important asset" that are not reinforced and/or supported by formal HR systems and processes are at the very least poor examples of employee communication. Neither should you just reiterate communication sent to the financial community and market – it's not targeted at employees specifically and will only serve to alienate them.

Instead, explain the company's performance targets to key personnel, including senior- and lower-level managers. Encourage them to think what this will mean for their own areas and how they can contribute to the bigger picture. They will act as champions even through hard times.

Communicating change
Don't dictate and impose change that pursues short-sighted slash and burn techniques that cause disconnection among employees, ignores their points of view and needs. In short, don't use a communication style that appears autocratic. Actively prepare others for change, clearly articulating the risks for the status quo, build the case for change, and present a compelling vision of the future. Involve colleagues and build their ownership for change through effective communication. Visibly and vocally champion successes and best practice.

Communicating values
This is not about communicating the company's values and the "right way" that is later challenged or contradicted by word or action, policy or process. Nor should it highlight rhetoric-reality gaps or insincere discourse.

Instead, it should represent the company's value system and tackle the hard issues with consistency, candor and courage. It should also manage complex communication encounters, always assuaging conflict and stress and pursuing win-win outcomes. Integrity should be demonstrated by making sure that words and actions convey a consistent message and leaders lead by example.

Communicating strategy
A glib communicator can utilize spin or be inappropriately vague at key moments. This is not what is needed to adequately communicate strategy or vision. Nor is a communication style that's abrasive and insensitive – particularly when challenged or at times of moderate stress or crisis.

The aim should be to credibly represent the company vision and strategy internally and externally – with professionalism and poise. Always speak in straightforward terms that are easily understood by others. Continuously seek and give feedback and use that feedback to educate leaders on the company image.

taken from ...

Creating a dedicated CEO web page

2005-07-24T18:38:00.000-07:00

Creating a dedicated CEO web page

The following question was recently posted to the Communicators' Network:

Q: "I'm interested in creating a dedicated CEO page on our intranet? Does anyone have any tips for success?"

The following response came from Wayne Clarke of Celerant Consulting Ltd:

"Our CEO has a dedicated homepage where he has the ability to make his personal interests explicit to the rest of the business. In fact our CEO and the executive management team all have the ability to share their personal experiences (i.e., anything from the type of dogs they like, to recent holiday and family pictures). They all have the ability to update their homepages through an "idiot-proof" web authoring tool which allows them to add text and images; so it is completely self managed.

These personal pages give a great insight into our leadership especially from the perspective of new joiners who have the ability to get some real background information on the leadership team and CEO. In addition to these 'personal pages' we have a CEO page on the intranet which is managed and co-written by internal communication which includes high-level information on the organization from the perspective of the CEO with links to recent strategy updates or anything you would expect from the CEO's office.

The enabling technology for this is Microsoft Sharepoint Portal Server; essentially its a portal product which allows each individual throughout the business to have their own homepage which also acts as blog if they so wish."

taken from..

Communicating during difficult times

2005-07-24T10:17:00.000-07:00

Communicating during difficult times

Events in recent weeks remind us that we can all be subject to disruption ranging from terrorist attacks to natural disasters and organizational change; so it pays to know how best to act during difficult times.

Al Siebert, Ph.D, author of The Resiliency Advantage and director of The Resiliency Center, has a wealth of experience of crisis communication. "When people are emotionally distracted by upsetting world events or by internal organizational disruptions, it is essential to manage group meetings in a skillfully sensitive way," he says.

Here are his pointers for facilitating meetings when people have heightened emotions:

To facilitate well, you must first deal with your own feelings. Remember not to impose them or your values on others.
Conduct a group "check in." If people are feeling emotional about organizational or world events, focus on their feelings first, before trying to cover agenda items.
Ask each person to comment on how they feel about the events, express any concerns they have, and comment on how they feel about being at the meeting. Look at each person closely while they are speaking to judge for yourself how "present" or emotionally distracted they are.
Discuss the agenda – ask each person to say if they feel they can be involved in discussions about the agenda items. Make it safe for them to say no if they can’t. Acknowledge their feelings, don’t suppress them, then focus the group on the things that must get done.
Reschedule some items on the agenda if necessary. If the majority of the group says they don’t feel that they can focus on the meeting, then table all agenda items that require open discussion until a later date. Limit the meeting to essential information items that are very time relevant.
Be prepared to postpone to a later date. Meetings usually require a relaxed atmosphere conducive to open discussion — this may be difficult in times of stress. Resiliency research shows that feelings of distress, anguish, anger and anxiety will constrict and narrow cognitive processes. Postponing a meeting is a rational course of action when involved group discussion, analysis, problem solving and goal setting is required.

Source: The article "How to hold team meetings during emotional times" appeared in the June 2005 issue of The Business Communicator.

Preparing for a crisis

2005-07-24T10:15:00.000-07:00

Preparing for a Crisis

The following question was recently posted to The Communicators’ Network:

Q: "What best practice ideas do you have for communicating a disaster recovery plan to users of business and finance systems?"

The following response came from Judy Jones of The New York Times Company:

A: "We have extensive documentation for each work group, including up-to-date telephone and e-mail (not work e-mail addresses) trees.

And we have hot sites that can be established within a few hours and allow all essential business operations to function.

We’ve had run throughs of scenarios, which have revealed some issues and have led to new approaches.

We also have a 'dark' 800 phone number and website that can be switched on in case of need. All employees have the phone number and web address on stickers on their ID cards, desktop phones and on bulletin boards, etc."

communication: Getting to grips with new technology

2005-07-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

Getting to grips with new technology

When a new software program is launched internally, communicators can play a more important role in its successful take-up than simply creating a launch campaign. Betsy Pasley, a senior communicator at a Fortune 200 financial services company in the US, makes the case for getting involved in performance support.

"Over the past decade, I’ve forged a strong belief that communicators can help bridge the technology gap in more ways than just the typical publicity campaign that tells employees how much they should love their new desktops," says Pasley. "We can apply our strong writing and messaging skills to other often untapped areas, such as pop-up windows, error messages and on-screen text."

Pasley shares the following examples of ways to make a difference:

On-screen text – you may be able to convert programmer jargon into the actual language of your users.
Workflow e-mails – many applications include automatic e-mail messages, often using standard language for the subject line and body of the message. Change that "Update from server; ID file appended" subject line to "Action needed: employee change approval required" and you’ll make lots of friends.
Pop-up messages – there may be some leeway with the software provider to make those "Fatal Error; application aborted" messages understandable. I once coerced a client to send brief pop-up messages to employees screens before they received a new software update. It gave them advance notice and provided a link to an overview of the changes.
Online help – hopefully your help information is already written into the program. But if it isn’t – or it’s written in cryptic terms – you may have a chance to influence or edit for clarity.

A word of warning from Pasley: "While I enthusiastically advocate these approaches and have successfully used them in my client work, it’s important you confirm early on that your IT partner has the flexibility to make changes like this."

Source: The above is an extract from an article appearing in the latest issue of Strategic Communication Management entitled "Time for a Technology Intervention."

Dealing with coworker

2005-07-19T14:10:00.000-07:00

From Melissa C. Stoppler, M.D., - Your Guide to Stress Management

Whether meddling but well-intentioned or blatantly confrontational, coworkers are cited by many people as the number one stress-inducing factor on the job. In contrast to your private life, you rarely can choose the people with whom you spend the majority of each working day. Across professional and workplace boundaries, difficult coworkers tend to fall into one of several categories. See if you can recognize these coworker types, and read suggestions for managing coworker stress.

1. The Chatty Neighbor
The type: The Chatty Neighbor need not be in geographic proximity to your work space, but when he feels like a chat, he's always there. The topic isn't so important as the Neighbor's need for chatter and distraction. Generally well-meaning, he views his willingness to shoot the breeze all day as a sign of good will and solidarity. If the constant babbling doesn't get to you, the time lost from your other responsibilities will.

The solution: Create an illusion of psychological distance (if physical distancing, such as shutting the door) isn't an option. You can "wall off" a workspace to a certain extent with bookshelves, plants, etc. Try responding to the conversation with short yes/no answers or "hmms" that won't encourage further discourse. You can head off "chat attacks" before they start by appearing totally engrossed in an activity or picking up the phone. If all else fails, respond with, "Oh, sorry, I didn't hear you at all - I'm so busy with this deadline."

2. The Slanderer
The type: Not the least well-intentioned, the Slanderer is, just as the name implies, determined to achieve personal rewards by discrediting others. The Slanderer's well-timed gossip tidbits about everything from your work habits to your personal life may be twisted versions of the truth or outright lies. This coworker type may appear friendly and open, as she hopes you'll reveal some useful material about yourself.

The solution: Absolutely refuse to get into a character assassination war or office feud. Spreading negative rumors as revenge about the Slanderer will only lower people's estimation of you and your abilities (after all, no one will remember who started the attacks; you'll both be viewed as petty and untrustworthy). Prove the negative rumors wrong through your capabilities and performance.

3. The Best Friend
The type: The Best Friend is completely and unconditionally open with all the details of his/her private life, and expects reciprocation. No matter if you're uncomfortable hearing about the last fight with his ex or what her gynecologist said, you'll wind up on the receiving end of a lot of unwanted information. The Friend generally subscribes to the rule of the office as family; intrusive questions are the behavioral norm.

The solution: Recognize that you're not the one being inappropriate and don't feel compelled to discuss any topics you consider off-limits. Don't encourage further personal revelations by offering advice or asking for more information when the Friend opens up. You certainly are not required to answer personal questions; often a laugh or joke is the best reply to an offensive question.

4. The Thief
The type: The Thief is always on the lookout for opinions and ideas that she can pass along to others as her own. Victims of office Thieves have been astonished to hear their own ideas mentioned later by the boss as "brilliant suggestions" from the Thief herself.
Thievery can also occur with written projects - your ideas mysteriously appear in someone else's report.

The solution: Once burned, learn from the experience. Crying "she stole my idea" isn't going to win you any points or respect. As with the Slanderer, don't get into an office war, and limit your discussions with this person to topics such as the weather.

5. The Clinger
The type: The Clinger, like the Best Friend, views the office as one happy family. If you work together, the Clinger sees no harm in -and even welcomes - spending weekends, evenings, and holidays together. He's always suggesting going out after work, playing ball,
or some other group activity. If you're enthusiastic and willing to socialize with the office crowd, this type isn't a problem. The problems arise when you want to maintain some distance.

The solution: Decide how much of your private time you're willing to share with office-mates. Participate in group activities when you have the inclination, and resist the need to apologize or provide excuses when you don't.

6. The Secret Agent
The type: Everyone has encountered the office spy- he's the boss's eyes and ears. Luckily, this person generally blows his Secret Agent cover fairly rapidly. Unfortunately, there are always victims who must learn about this type the hard way.
The solution: Same as for #4, the Thief. Learn from your experience and move on.

Top Tips To Ensure Positive Experience

2005-07-16T14:59:00.000-07:00

If your job applicants receive a rough ride you risk losing out onhighly skilled people to competitors, as well as negativelyaffecting your employer brand. As companies begin to realize thatevery candidate is also a potential customer, they're taking steps to ensure all job candidates have a positive experience.

PatriceBarbedette, executive director and founder of Jobpartners, shareshis top five tips:1. Produce clear, easy-to-find job descriptions.

First, make jobseasy to find on your website or that of a third party and provideplenty of information about the job role and the applicationprocess. Include an HR section which must be as attractive andclear as possible, with employee testimonials and extensive jobdescriptions. This will help give candidates an idea of the companyculture and what they can expect from the job if they aresuccessful.

2. Respond quickly and efficiently. Too many companies fail toreply promptly to candidates, and some fail to reply at all, whichimmediately creates a poor perception. The initial response must be the process. Be clear on what\'s expected next from the candidate orwhat can be expected from the company.

3. Create a talent pool. If you receive a good application butdon\'t have a suitable job opening, keep it on file so you create atalent pool to refer to in future. Offer talented applicants theopportunity to create a personal profile that can be updated at anypoint.

4. Ensure management involvement. Effective communication betweenthe recruiting department and managers helps create a streamlinedprocess that's time and cost effective. For example, managementinvolvement will make sure job descriptions are completely alignedwith managers' needs and the right candidates are put forward.

5. Build excellent one-to-one relationships. Make the candidatefeel they are unique throughout the recruitment process. Whenpossible, send personalized answers, offer the opportunity to applyfor other relevant jobs and ensure you keep all notes and feedbackfrom everyone involved in the recruitment process. Finally,remember to keep promises made to new employees - the inductionprocess should also be personalized to ensure that, after all thehard work put into recruitment, the new recruit doesn't walk out thedoor in the first few weeks.

Source: Strategic HR Review Vol. 4, Issue 5, July/August 2005

VITAL STATISTICS: Measuring the progress of women in Asia-Pacific

2005-07-13T19:34:00.000-07:00

MasterCard International has launched the MasterIndex of Women’s Advancement in order to gauge the power of the female consumer in Asia, and give the region a benchmark to measure women’s social progress. Highlights of the findings include:
- Women’s participating in the workforce came close to that of men in Thailand (82.9), Australia (81.0), Hong Kong (73.6), Korea (72.8), Japan (70.3), Singapore (69.8) and Taiwan (68.8).
- In the area of tertiary education, women’s representation exceeds that of men in Thailand (131.9) and Australia (103.4). Women are also well represented in Hong Kong (88.6), Singapore (85.3) and Korea (74.4).
- The ratio of women in managerial positions surpasses that of men in Malaysia (119.4) while scores in Taiwan (73.9), China (70.5) and Thailand indicate near equality between the sexes.

In the area of earning above median income, women in Malaysia (82.4) and Thailand (81.4) are close to achieving parity with men.

MasterCard will share the information with member banks, retailers and other partners, so they too are in a good position to understand female consumers.

Adapted from “Measuring the progress of women in Asia-Pacific” in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

METRIC MATTERS: What is financial environmental accounting?

2005-07-13T19:31:00.000-07:00

Environmental accounting covers both the physical flows of materials and energy, and the associated financial costs and benefits. Forum for the Future, a UK sustainable development charity focuses on financial environmental accounting, which can help make the link between financial and environmental performance and so give management the information they need for win-win decisions. Financial environmental accounting has three different faces:

1. Tracking the benefits and costs to the company of its initiatives.
The costs of environmental activities are all too prominent but the benefits are often hidden. Many projects have environmental and financial benefits: avoiding fines, creating cost efficiencies or leading to new sources of revenue while increasing resource productivity and reducing waste. More intangible benefits come from motivating employees and enhancing a company’s reputation. Unless these benefits are brought to management’s attention, environmental activities only look like a cost center. Bringing the costs and benefits of environmental activities together allows companies to build the business case.

2. Measuring the externalities created. An externality is the costs borne by other people, now and in the future, from an activity which was not included in the transaction price. For instance, the price of a taxi journey does not include the costs to future generations of climate change. It’s possible to calculate the externality a company is creating but, because externalities are by definition outside of the market’s price setting process, any valuation is judgmental.

3. Calculating the cost and benefit to the company of avoiding its environmental impacts. A company needs to know the financial exposure of having to internalize its externalities. Companies can be quickly asked to reduce their environmental impacts – either through regulation and taxes (such as the Climate Change Levy or Landfill Tax) or from changes in stakeholder expectations (disposal of oil rigs such as Brent Spa). With an account of how much it would cost the company to avoid or restore its main environmental impacts, a company can move to limit its exposure, improve its decision making and report progress to stakeholders.

Adapted from “Convincing the finance department with environmental accounting” in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

Community Development Ideas

2005-07-13T19:28:00.000-07:00

TOP TIPS: Transitioning from charity to community investment at Marks & Spencer

In April this year Marks & Spencer celebrated the first anniversary of Marks & Start, which is the UK’s biggest company-led work experience program. It is part of the UK retailer’s plan to make its community giving more strategic. In addition to giving disadvantaged people in the community a chance to work for two weeks at a Marks & Spencer store, it also involves employees. Around 1,000 employees have acted as mentors, known as “buddies” to the people doing work experience. Here are four lessons organizers learned from developing the program.

1. Getting the quality of the programs right is critical, much more than the number of people that pass through the program.

2. Partner with organizations that are experts in specific areas to ensure seamless delivery. Marks & Spencer partners with the Prince’s Trust, DisabledGo, Business Action on Homelessness, One Parent Families and Parentline Plus.

3. Gain support from all levels of the business, from stores up to the board of directors

4. Keep elements of the program flexible to ensure suitability to the placements, but stay focused on end results and business benefits.

Adapted from “Transitioning from charity to community investment at Marks & Spencer” in the current issue of Corporate Responsibility Management.

Online Learning Authoring Systems - Do They Exist?

2005-06-19T19:14:00.000-07:00

by Kathy Sparks

I'll go back about a year and a half when I began researching an online learning system for two of my clients. What keywords to use � online learning. Well no, that brings up all sorts of colleges, universities, technical schools, software certification schools with hundreds of listings of classes. Okay,how about "writing courses online." No again, these words simply tell me where to go to find about writing courses online.

The subject is really rather obscure. This might be because authoring systems are generally for large companies who can afford to purchase customized software specifically written for their company. Okay, let's try "online authoring course." Good, a little closer, but now I'm coming up with software packages to purchase. And they are not inexpensive. What I was looking for was a tool on line where I could have my own account and do the following:

1. Log in to my personal account

2. Create courses that have
a. Reading material
b. Self check quizzes
c. Final test
d. The ability to print
e. The ability to use PDF files with the course
f. Learners can start a class, leave class and come back to work on their class with their own personal log in.
g. Do a final quiz
h. Have the quiz graded and if successful, receive a certificate of successful completion

3. Track the results of Learners

4. Edit the course content on demand

5. Have several different courses within one account

6. Not have to worry about downloading software and publishing programs to my web site and creating login screens

At a Pay as You Go price for a small start up online course business where I can increase the service as I increase business.

When I didn't find this solution a year and a half ago, I created my courses as E-books and sent them out to Learners who ordered them and wanted the ability to do their classes from the convenience of their homes. Although easier than printing and mailing booklets, it did cause new problems, like "I couldn't get my course to download," I didn't receive the email," I can't find the Enrollment Code," but at least they weren't telling me "the dog ate my course." However, those Internet gremlins do show up occasionally.

At last I stumbled upon my perfect solution and a free 30 day trail! This is a 100% web based e-Learning toolset. I've created my first course. It really is quite easy. You don't need programming skills -- simply copy and paste your material. If you are a coach, consultant, tutor or teacher and have courses to share, you should try this tool. It's easy to get started.

Are You Ready for E-Learning?

2005-06-15T19:55:00.000-07:00

By Karl M. Kapp

An excellent method for pinpointing the needs of your organization and for developing an accurate list of requirements is to conduct an E-Learning Readiness Assessment.

Selecting an LMS or an e-learning solution for your organization involves wading through a quagmire of hype, hyperbole, and technological mumbo jumbo. There are literally hundreds of suppliers that sell all kinds of e-learning tools and products—each having its own vices and virtues.

Additionally, different business units within your organization each have their own needs and requirements. The sales department may need downloadable content, the operations department may need strict tracking of employee content, and the corporate executives may want comprehensive dashboard capabilities to be able to track trends and human resource requirements.

So how do you go about choosing the e-learning tool right for your organization? The first step is to analyze the business requirements of your organization—not just the training department's requirements. An LMS is an enterprise-wide purchase that must be viewed from an enterprise perspective. An excellent method for pinpointing the needs of your organization and for developing an accurate list of requirements is to conduct a readiness assessment.

A readiness assessment is a process by which you organize learning needs into five categories:

business
financial
cultural
technological
learning.
Business assessment

The first area to assess when making an e-learning decision is the area of business need. The e-learning initiative must be tied directly to the business needs and strategic direction of the organization. Here are some questions relating to the business need driving e-learning within your organization.

What are the strategic initiatives of the organization?
What can we not do strategically if we don't implement e-learning?
What strategic opportunities are we missing by implementing e-learning?
What are the broad aims, goals and objectives of our company?
What is our business model and how does learning support it
How does the learning initiative relate to the business model?
What problem does learning problem aim to solve?
Can the problem be solved through learning?
Is the goal to communicate information or improve skills?
Will the program impact organizational performance?
Are there regulatory, legal, or compliance considerations?
Have attempts to solve problem already been made? (What happened?)
Is the organization seriously committed to this initiative?
Financial assessment

The next area you need to consider is the financial assessment. An organization should perform a cost/benefit analysis to determine both the anticipated expense of the purchase as well as the projected financial benefits. When looking at expenses, do not forget to include ongoing support costs, which are usually a percentage of the purchase price or based on a per-user price.

In addition, be sure to include the cost of staff members to maintain and update the LMS or to develop or update purchased e-learning modules. When looking at the benefits include reduced travel, but also include increased learning opportunities. Work out any charge backs, development costs, and any other internal sharing of expenses. Here is a list of basic financial questions:

What would be the consequences of not executing the learning initiative? Is there a cost associated with inaction?
What are the expected financial benefits of executing the learning initiative? Long-term? Short-term?
What is the cost differential between internally and externally hosting the solution? Server costs? Staff costs? Security costs? Downtime costs? Lost opportunity costs (for internal IT staff)?
What is the full cost of this solution (servers, staffing, learner's time)?
Is the purpose of the learning initiative to save money or improve performance?
What are the charge back policies for the LMS or e-learning?
How will the return on investment be measured?
How will we handle on-going costs?
Is there a less expensive alternative?
Technology assessment

The next part of the readiness assessment is a technological evaluation of your course developers, trainers, information technology (IT) staff, and learners. If your organization's infrastructure is not prepared for the LMS system or for e-learning modules to be flying across your internal network then serious problem could arise.

You need to be sure the LMS or virtual classroom technology will run within your network. If not, you might want to consider a business proposition where the e-learning solution is housed on a vendor's network in an application service provider (ASP) arrangement. In this type of arrangement, the vendor houses your e-learning solution and provides your learners with access but the hardware and software associated with the solution remains on the vendors servers. In essence, you rent the server space from the vendor. Great solution when IT resources are limited. Here are some technology questions to consider in your needs assessment.

What is the delivery format (web, CD-ROM, DVD, etc)?
What connectivity is available to end-users
Will a learning (content) management system (LMS/LCMS) be used?
Is the desired technology compatible with in-house IT standards and rules?
What learner records need to be kept?
Will learner records be audited?
What is the nature of your technology infrastructure?
Will the learning system be hosted on in-house servers or outsourced servers?
What firewall issues must be considered to ensure smooth running of the program?
What are the specifications of computers to be used to access the learning program?
You also need to address several standards and compliance issues at this time.

What standards need to be employed for compatibility with the LMS/LCMS (SCORM™/AICC)?
Does the program need to serve the needs of users with disabilities (Section 508)
Does the system need to be validated?
Do we need electronic signatures and audit trails for compliance purposes?
Cultural assessment

The final element of a readiness assessment is close evaluation of your organization's culture. If you are going to make a large investment in an e-learning system, you want to make sure the employees will use the LMS. Successfully implementing learning technology into an organizational culture requires an understanding of the current view of learning and training within the organization as well as an understanding of the expectations of the executive team in terms of learning and performance. Some cultural questions include:

Do employees understand the value of e-learning?
Do you have a culture in which learners are used to learning on their own?
Are employees comfortable with technology?
Will time be allocated to learners during normal business hours?
What is the relevance of the required learning to the employee's position?
How is learning currently achieved for the knowledge, skills and behavior changes sought?
What is the general profile of the intended audience, including age, sex, education level, interests, learning style, languages spoken, comfort level with computers, experience with e-learning, and so forth?

Bottom line
The readiness assessment is a critical element in your decision to undergo the implementation of an e-learning solution. Failure to properly conduct a readiness assessment can lead to failures and delays in your e-learning implementation. A proper assessment can save your organization hundreds of thousand of dollars in lost time, effort, and resources.

Publsihed: April 2005

TOP TIPS: Creating boundary objects to aid knowledge transfer

2005-06-15T15:04:00.000-07:00

When groups in an organization work together on a project, there will inevitably be problems of understanding and knowledge transfer. Richard Miller offers advice on creating "boundary objects" - artifacts such as reports, physical prototypes, designs or business processes that sit in the interface between two or more groups and can act as common touchstones of shared knowledge and understanding:

1. Understand the problem.
Any group that works together regularly will share a set of beliefs, a set of assumptions and a language. So when different groups come together to tackle a project, their understanding of the problem, the desired outcome, and the parts played by other groups is affected by their set of beliefs, assumptions and language. Each group has different accountabilities and measures success in a different way. This group-specific problem is central the difficulties of transferring knowledge from one domain to another.

2. Co-create "boundary objects" in neutral territory. A boundary object should be co-invented in a neutral space to ensure relevance to all groups. Co-developing the boundary object ensures that all hidden assumptions made by different groups are placed on the table and the problems of definition and meaning can be understood and
resolved.

3. Make the boundary object a constant part of the interface
between different groups. Boundary objects should be things that are used regularly - things that are poked, prodded, revised and appealed to, because they have real use and meaning for all participating groups.

4. Make it conscious.
Perhaps you're already doing these things in KM and managing projects. You probably have some very successful boundary objects in your organization. But are you deliberate? Are they part of the way you approach problems of knowledge transfer?
Unless you specifically set out to create boundary objects, it's easy to forget the importance of co-invention. A conscious decision to develop appropriate boundary objects where and when they are needed makes a difference to the way organizations share knowledge.

Source: Adapted from "Creating boundary objects to aid knowledge
transfer" by Richard Miller in the current issue of KM Review.

Story Telling Benefits

2004-08-02T09:14:00.000-07:00

Do you know why story telling important ?
Here you go :

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Believe that:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Imagination is stronger than knowledge.
- Myth is more potent than history.
- Dreams are more powerful than facts.
- Hope always triumphs over experience.
- Laughter is the only cure for grief.
- Love is stronger than death.
- Everyone LOVES stories.

so, try your story telling to make people get what you mean, per your role
as coaching, consultant and/or trainer !

Good Luck !

Last Letter

2004-07-06T12:06:00.000-07:00

A woman is seated and is writing. There is a thunderstorm outside and she dies as a consequence. How did she die?

Solution:

She was a skywriter. Lightning struck her plane and she crashed.

taken fr "Lateral Logic Puzzles" by Erwin Brecher

Defying Gravity

2004-07-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

A man was painting using an ordinary brush and paint container. Something startled him. He dropped the paintbrush and it fell on the ceiling, not the floor. Why?

Taken from a series of books written by Paul Sloane

Solution:

He had been painting the walls of a miniature dolls house, and had turned it upside down to make the work easier.

Avoiding Train ~ lateral thinking

2004-07-06T10:22:00.000-07:00

A man was walking along a railway track when he spotted an express train speeding towards him. To avoid it, he jumped off the track, but before he jumped he ran ten feet towards the train. Why?

Taken from a series of books written by Paul Sloane

solution :

The man was walking through a train tunnel and was almost at the end when he heard a whistle and spotted the train approaching him. He therefore had to move forward, towards the train, so that he could exit the tunnel and jump clear.

A man in Elevator ~ lateral thinking

2004-07-06T10:05:00.000-07:00

A man lives on the tenth floor of a building. Every day he takes the elevator to go down to the ground floor to go to work or to go shopping. When he returns he takes the elevator to the seventh floor and walks up the stairs to reach his apartment on the tenth floor. He hates walking so why does he do it?

(taken fr a series of books written by Paul Sloane)

The man is a dwarf, and can therefore only reach the elevator button for the 7th floor.

Lateral Thinking ~ Happy or Sad

2004-07-06T09:52:00.000-07:00

Three women dressed in swimsuits were standing together. Two were sad and one was happy. But the sad women were both smiling and the happy one was crying. Why should that be so?

(taken fr a series of books written by Paul Sloane)

It was the final of the Miss World beauty contest. The winner always cries. The disappointed runners-up smile because everyone is watching them and they are expected to look happy and radiant.

QUESTIONS THAT WILL HELP CLARIFY OUR GOALS

2004-06-30T07:37:00.000-07:00

Robert Elias Najemy http://www.HolisticHarmony.com

1. What exactly is your goal or purpose here?

2. What is it that you would like to change, solve, manifest or create?

3. Why is this important to you?

4. If for some reason beyond your control you do not succeed, what do you image you will feel?

5. When you do succeed, what do you imagine you will feel?

6. If you had a magic wand and could create any results, please describe the result that would be 80% of what you want?

a. How would you feel with that 80%?
b. What would be missing for you?

7. Now please describe in detail your 100% result - that would satisfy you totally.

8. And now please describe a result that would be 200% - meaning that it is an even more positive result than the one you have previously described.

a. How is this better?
b. Is there any reason not to move towards this 200% goal?

9. Please explain why this is important to you in terms of your deepest values?

10. What deeper needs will be satisfied when you fulfill this goal. (Perhaps self-esteem, self-confidence, financial or professional security, freedom, happiness, meaning?)

11. Can you think of an even higher or more satisfying goal than the one you
have presently described? What would is be?

12. What do you need increase or strengthen in order to manifest this goal:

a. In yourself?
b. In your effort?
c. In your surroundings? (people, objects, activities, environment)

13. What do you need to lessen, let go of or free yourself from in order to achieve this goal?

14. What do you need to do differently in order to succeed?

15. Is there any part of you that might have the slightest doubt about:

a. Yourself or you ability? If so what?
b. The goal itself - whether it is worth it? If so why?
c. Whether you actually want this result? If so why?
d. Whether this is your real goal or a social or parental programming?

16. What prevents you from manifesting this result instantaneously -at this
moment?

17. Close your eyes. Relax. Now imagine yourself having already succeeded and having created your chosen reality.

a. How do you feel?
b. Do you feel comfortable with this success? If not, why?
c. Do you deserve this success? If not, why?

18. If you took total responsibility for creating your reality and believed that on one else plays any role whatsoever in creating it, how would you think, act and proceed differently towards this goal?

19. If you believed that you were all-powerful, how would you deal with this differently?

20. What do you choose to believe and do in order to move forward without obstacles quickly and efficiently to create the reality you choose?

This part one of a series of questionnaires for Life Coaches and all interested creating a happier more satisfying life.

More such questionnaires can be viewed at:
http://www.HolisticHarmony.com/coachquestions/index.asp

Power Word : GMAT sampler

2004-06-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

Word Problem: The Price is Height
If Sidney is taller than Roger, Roger is taller than Vernon, and Billy is taller than both Roger and Felix, then which of the following statements must be true?

(A) Felix is taller than Roger

(B) Sidney is taller than Billy

(C) Roger is shorter than Felix.

(D) Sidney is taller than Felix

(E) Billy is taller than Vernon

The Correct Answer to the Question above is:
(E)

This problem is simply a matter of keeping the information straight. The easiest way to do this is to make a scratchwork chart, putting one person's initial over another when the first person is known to be taller. The trick is to make sure you don't imply a relationship in heights when none is stated; so draw your chart very carefully. From the information given, your chart should show Sidney above Roger, Vernon below Roger (and Sidney), and Billy above Roger and Felix. Put Billy next to Sidney since we don't know which one's taller, and put Felix off to the side, since we don't know how Felix's height relates to anyone but Billy.

Now look at the answer choices. As we just said, we only know Felix's height in relation to Billy, so (A) and (C) are out. (B) isn't necessarily true either: Both Sidney and Billy are taller than Roger, but we don't know which is taller than the other. That kills (D), too: Though Sidney and Billy are taller than Roger, we can't conclude that Sidney is also taller than Felix simply because Billy is. (E) is left by process of elimination. Just to check, Billy is taller than Roger and Roger is taller than Vernon, so Billy does indeed have to be taller than Vernon.